


Like a game of Pai Sho

by NyeLung



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Force Ghost Obi-Wan Kenobi, Force sensitive Sokka, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Genocide, Obi-Wan and Iroh bond over tea and Pai Sho, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, With A Twist, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zuko makes canon level of bad life choices but for better reasons, at least I try really hard with the comfort and healing and I promise a happy end, no beta we die like lu ten, some hurt but lots of comfort and healing, then four, then more, this is gonna be so much found family, traumatized family of three, unlearning hundred years worth of propaganda
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:48:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 42,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27106732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyeLung/pseuds/NyeLung
Summary: The story where Obi-Wan becomes a Force ghost but islostlocationally challenged and finds himself in the world of AtlA where his fate is quickly entwined with that of the Avatar. But, being a Force ghost, he's no help in a fight and can't exactly ride a sky bison either, so his path leads him onto Prince Zuko's ship where he learns about the world, a hundred years of history written by the victors and maybe discovers the reason why he's in this world rather than his own.Or:The story where Iroh and Obi-Wan bond over tea and Pai Sho and a certain worrisome prince while selfsame prince would love to get rid of the two old men that want him to learn about life and also start asking the right questions. And maybe, if we're really, really lucky, they all get to heal and grow.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Obi-Wan Kenobi & Iroh, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Sokka, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 174
Kudos: 232





	1. The Jedi in the Ice Desert

**Author's Note:**

> I may have watched AtlA for the first time a few weeks ago. By which I mean that I binged those 61 episodes within, like, 10 days and since then I've had this idea hopping around that Obi-Wan and Iroh would totally drink tea and play Pai Sho together while driving Zuko up the wall. After all, Obi-Wan is just as good at throwing around proverbs.  
> Then it evolved to "but it's more fun if Obi-Wan is a Force ghost and therefore somehow connected to Aang" which evolved to "huh, Obi-Wan, Zuko and Iroh all got their little trauma package. Would be neat if they helped each other" which evolved to what I'm writing now.  
> This fic is going to follow canon events more or less closely. Some things change, some things stay the same and some things happen similarly but within an entirely different context. And Obi-Wan's not going to save the world but he might be able to talk some sense into the most stubborn prince alive. Iroh's not holding his breath for it, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for PoV dying (like in canon aboard the Death Star), mentions of genocide (air nomads and Jedi) and war crimes (raids on the southern water tribe)
> 
> also warning for me attempting to write children, I guess
> 
> And yes, that chapter title is a reference to the episode title.

### Chapter 1 – The Jedi in the Ice Desert

Becoming one with the Force after not exactly being bisected by a lightsaber feels far different from what Obi-Wan expected. He's not the first to become a ghost, after all, and Qui-Gon had described it as peace and serenity and calm. To Obi-Wan it feels mostly cold and dark.

The cold doesn't touch him the way it should. He's wearing only his robes and although those are warm enough to withstand the temperature drop of a desert night, they shouldn't be enough to withstand the icy, barren landscape that stretches before his eyes in a weird double-image laid over the Death Star interior. There are grey metal walls and Vader standing over his cloak but there's also cracks and rifts in glaciers that lead to the ocean beneath. There's also Luke who has barely reached the Millennium Falcon's ramp only to turn around to where Obi-Wan has just been killed by Vader.

"Run, Luke, run!", he urges the boy. Young man.

The double-image fades and only the ice desert remains.

"Well", Obi-Wan says to himself, "this is certainly not the Force but at least it's not Tatooine either." He ruffles his robes and, yes, there is still sand drizzling from them. He can see it falling through his transparent, blue glowing form. Figures that Tatooine sand would cling to him even after death. A dreadful place for exile but the safest option to hide Luke from the Emperor and Vader. If it had been his choice... hmmm, he'd have taken exile on Naboo. Excellent climate, excellent baths.

Obi-Wan looks around. The ice stretches on until it meets the horizon, he's a ghost and he should be one with the Force but he doesn't seem to be.

In short, he has no idea where he is and what he is supposed to do now.

He does what any Jedi in his situation would do. He reaches out towards the Force and hopes for guidance. Instead he is met with a strangely distant feeling, like the Force is just out of reach. It's similar to when Ventress had cut off his connection to the Force on Rattatak but also fundamentally different. Unlike on Rattatak, the Force is there and so is he and it is swirling all around him. He can feel it. The problem is that he can't... feel it the way he should be able to. To him, the Force usually is a song of billions of voices. Right now it is nothing more than a whisper.

A whisper that nudges him into a certain direction but still just a whisper.

He feels alone in a way he hasn't felt since Order 66 made him one of the last Jedi. Then, at least, he was still with the Force.

Without any better idea and the Force still silent, Obi-Wan walks – and can it really be called walking when he can't feel the ground beneath his feet? – over the frozen wasteland towards that nudge.

He finds a small village bordering the ocean after walking for what feels like hours, the sky turning to night and then day again. No animal that he has passed, seemed familiar which is unsettling in a way. Obi-Wan can't claim to be a zoologist but he does know a lot of the galaxy's wildlife – most of it because it has tried to kill him at some point or other.

Coming closer, the village turns out to be more a loose collection of huts built from ice blocks and a small wall of snow around it. It oddly reminds him of kids playing castle. That impression grows only stronger once he actually reaches the village. There are children playing in the snow, a couple women watching them while sewing or cooking or tending to fish nets. All of them are past their prime, tired and wary. One of them, clearly much older than the rest, notices Obi-Wan first. He notices that there are no men. No one in fighting age. The only ones who come close are the youngest of the women and two children that could be Padawans if they were Jedi. No, three, he corrects himself, when he sees a kid land with a bright glider made from paper and wood and... there is a hint of the Force around him but it is different, not like anything Obi-Wan has ever felt.

He bows once he reaches the village entry – a hole left in the snow wall. There is fear lying over the village like a blanket. Fear, grief and bone-deep resignation. The last thing Obi-Wan wants is to feed those emotions when all he needs is a few answers. Maybe the villagers are more forthcoming where the Force is silent.

He holds up his empty hands to show that he is unarmed – his lightsaber is probably still on the Death Star. "Forgive my intrusion", Obi-Wan says in Basic and hopes that these people know Basic, "I appear to be lost. Can you tell me where I am?"

One of the older children, a boy clad in blue and armed with a club and a boomerang, approaches him warily, while the other two older children guard the smaller ones alongside the woman who look at him in resignation and confusion. The blue clad boy is hastily stopped by the eldest of the women, who whispers empathetically to him and sends him back to the other children. Only then does she turn to Obi-Wan. "You're a spirit, aren't you?"

Obi-Wan looks down at himself. Well. He is floating a bit above the ground and there is the blue gleam surrounding him that seems to be the norm for Force ghosts interacting with the material world. "It seems I am. You can call me Ben." Spirits and Force ghosts are the same thing, aren't they? "What place is this?"

"Honourable spirit." The eldest, also clad in blue like the boy but adorned with white pelts, bows as deep as her joints allow. "This is the last Water Tribe village at the South Pole."

Obi-Wan can't recall any planet with a Water Tribe, but then, he doesn't know every planet in the galaxy and this seems to be one of those planets without technological or strategic importance so that it was never involved with the Republic, the Separatists or the Empire now. "I'm afraid I've never heard of a Water Tribe. Would it be possible for me to stay a while?" Maybe he can find out a bit about this planet and this village and why the Force has lead him here.

The villagers murmur among themselves in confusion. The eldest on the other hand smiles and bows again. "We would be honoured."

Obi-Wan tries to stop her this time from making her joints ache, by, well, not exactly stepping in front of her, because he is a Force ghost now and can't walk. It works well enough. "There's no need to bow this way to me", he tells her. Then he notices that he can't help her back up and looks around helplessly. Thankfully, the boy with the boomerang understands. "If it's no trouble, does anyone here know a place where I can meditate?" He hopes that the Force answers him now.

A girl with kind but sad eyes, one of the three older children, leads him to the edge of a village. It's relatively quiet compared to the rest of the village where the younger children are running about playing some version of tag. Obi-Wan thanks her and moves into a sitting position without actually feeling the ground beneath him. It's not the same as levitating during meditation, it's more like... well, he's not grounded. Even when levitating, he has a connection to the ground. Not now.

He breathes. In and out even though he doesn't need to breathe and there's no air reaching his lungs because he doesn't have lungs. He feels so disconnected from everything and he wonders if it was the same for Qui-Gon whenever he visited on Tatooine. Obi-Wan looks around and watches the people. The kid in bright colours – yellows and oranges and light blues – plays tag with the younger children. Everyone apart from that kid wears blues and whites, sometimes a hint of purple. Some of the pieces are embroidered with moons and waves and decorated with bones and coloured beads. He's not sure how some of them can run around with bare arms. They aren't ghosts like he is, so they should freeze. They don't, despite the cutting gales, so he guesses that there's something strange at work here. He wonders if it's for the same reason why the Force feels strange here.

Obi-Wan relaxes. He's become one with the Force now. He can feel it even if reaching out to it is harder than it should be. It, for lack of better words, feels foreign to him here. Different. Strange. Wild in one way and tamed in another. And separated. He's no stranger to fractures and tears in the Force. It's always ripped apart and bleeding in the aftermath of devastating battles or catastrophes, like all the death cries are stuck in it. When the Emperor issued Order 66 and killed almost all the Jedi, the Force had almost torn itself apart and then again when the Death Star had destroyed Alderaan. The memory of the echoes alone is deafening. The Force here is not ripped or torn in that way. Instead it feels like clean cuts that divide the Force into different parts.

To Obi-Wan, who has always felt the Force as One, it is unnerving.

He tries to delve into the Force's currents. Before he died, he has always done it to feel the lives surrounding him, every single one a light in the Force. Here it is more like a flickering far away star that he watches through a dark veil while standing in thick fog at night. There are only two that he can make out more clearly. The kid with the bright clothes and glider is almost tangible and a second... the girl with the sad eyes, Obi-Wan thinks. Everyone else, who he should be able to feel, is almost unnoticeable.

He wonders how to regain his full connection to the Force. He wonders if the two with noticeable Force presences would shine much brighter then, maybe as bright as Jedi.

"Hey!"

Obi-Wan flinches back – into the wall of a hut – as he is ripped out of his meditation. Hastily he retreats out of the wall as he sees the little kid, that had just startled him, pale. "Hello, young one."

"Are you really a spirit?" The child pronounces every syllable carefully, Obi-Wan notices. Maybe three years old. Maybe four. His reflecting glows in the child's dark blue eyes.

"That depends on your people's definition of a spirit, doesn't it?", Obi-Wan asks with a faint smile. "I'm certainly not alive."

"What's a de-fi-ni-shn?"

"Definition." The child reminds him of the younglings in the Temple. "It's a word that means what a word means. The definition of water, for example, would be that it is fluid, wet and so on."

"It is also one of the four elements." That is said by the eldest who approaches them.

Four elements? Obi-Wan frowns. He is pretty sure that there are more than four elements and that water is actually a collection of molecules and not an element. "Then what are the other three?", he asks instead of voicing these thoughts.

Now the old woman frowns. "Earth, Air and Fire. You must be from far away to not know this. Child, go to the others. This spirit and I need to talk privately."

Obi-Wan nods in the child's direction to encourage it to leave. "I'm listening", he says to the old woman once he is sure that the child is gone. "Because it seems to me, too, that I am far from home."

She sighs and carefully sits down next to him. Obi-Wan reaches to help her and then doesn't because his hands just pass through her arms. The eldest still smiles gratefully. "In the old days, before I was born, the four elements of this world were in balance. Water, Earth, Fire and Air. The Avatar held the balance between the Water Tribes, the Earth Kingdom, the Fire Nation and the Air Nomads until one day the Avatar vanished and the Fire Nation attacked. Their firebenders were ruthless and wiped out the Air Nomads and have attacked us ever since."

Obi-Wan looks at the small snow wall, at the child's attempt of a watchtower and understands. That's why the village is mostly older women and young children. That's where the layers of fear, grief and resignation come from. "They've been raiding your home for decades, haven't they? Often at first and then less and less regularly until you thought that maybe they had forgotten about you and then they returned?" He has read about similar tactics, has seen similar tactics from the Empire albeit not for decades. Before she was born, she said? That is a minimum of seventy years, probably more than eighty. 

"Yes..." She looks up at him, the shine of long ago shed tears in her eyes. "How did you know?"

"I... where I'm from, where I _was_ from, I guess by my current state... I was a warrior in a way and when war came, I was made a general to lead armies..." He can't say any more. It has been nineteen years since the war ended. Nineteen long years and still...

"What happened to them?"

He shakes his head. "We died", Obi-Wan whispers. "All of us. They hunted us down to the last."

The old woman holds her hand out to him and even though Obi-Wan can't really grab it, he tries to feel the comfort from the almost-contact. "Then you understand."

Obi-Wan breathes deeply, trying to calm his emotions. He doesn't need it, but it is a habit to calm himself this way and it works regardless of his need. "Maybe I do", he answers. "Tell me of the spirits. I think they might be different than the ones where I am from."

She tells him of spirits, of the sun Agni that breathes sparks into fire, of the ocean La and the moon Tui that push and pull and dance, of the spirirts of the Earth and mountains whose names have been forgotten but their rumbling laughter hasn't. She tells him of the year of storms when the wind spirits were grieving the air nomads and of the ice spirits across the frozen planes that are always calling for someone to warm them, help them. She tells him of the Avatar, the balance between the elements but also between the material and the Spirit world and that the Avatar has abandoned them.

She tells him what she perceives as the truth, but Obi-Wan looks at the boy with the bright glider and his shining presence in the Force... He thinks that in at least one point, the elder might be wrong.

Obi-Wan has found another quiet place to meditate on what the old woman has told him. He wonders why she hadn't told him her name but remembers the believes of old cultures where supernatural entities could harm you if they were given the real name of the one who talked to them. 

What he does understand, apart from the information she has given him, is the fact that spirits are respected or feared. He's not unused to the sensation as a Jedi, especially since the Clone Wars made all of them into warriors rather then peace keepers and the Empire after that has done its best to worsen that impression. Child thieves, murderers, evil with power beyond mortal understanding. That doesn't mean that he likes it. He's a guest here, wherever here is – he has the sneaking suspicion that here is further away from home than should be possible – and he doesn't want people to fear him.

It also feels wrong to be addressed as a spirit when the spirits of this world seem so different from what he knows of Force ghosts. The spirits, the eldest told about, are forces of nature. Sun and moon and ocean and the likes. He's just a person. Acting like he is not, even when being able to wield the Force sets him apart from people who can't, is wrong.

They probably assumed that he is a spirit because of... well, his form as a Force ghost. He can control the floating. It will take a lot of attention to actually walk on the ground rather than in it or above it but it can be controlled. The transparency of his form and the blue glow are more problematic.

His meditation turns inwards. The Force around him is strange and difficult to reach, so he rather tries to connect to the Force from within himself, the way he is used to. It answers easily and echoes through the strange Force outside. It is... unsettling not to feel the Force the way he should be able to. He is a part of it now, isn't he? Why then, does it elude him?

Obi-Wan pushes those thoughts aside. He can meditate on them another time. For the moment he has to work on his appearance. He is tired of scaring people. It had its benefits in his exile on Tatooine because scared people are less likely to visit and when there's not visitors it's less likely that he's recognized as a Jedi in general and Obi-Wan Kenobi specifically. Now... no. He can feel no Emperor, no Vader here. He no longer has to hide Luke from them.

The Force sings calmingly through his being, currents that ebb and flow and rise like a bird on the right thermals. It echoes around him... no, it floods out of him, like there is no real boundary where he ends and the Force begins. He moves along the Force's song, breathing the air he doesn't need. Every breath is a new layer, a new boundary to keep his presence from leaking all over the place. Not the best metaphor but he couldn't express it better.

"Wow... without the glow you almost look like a normal person."

Obi-Wan cracks open an eye to see the young boy in the bright orange and yellow clothes. He opens both eyes to look at his hands. They aren't glowing any longer. Progress. "Hm, I can still see the ground through them, though", he jokes as he anchors down the boundaries around his being. It will take some attention to keep them up but the benefits outweigh the troubles and he rather doubts that he will have to pay as much attention to his mental shields here. The Emperor isn't here, after all. Neither is Luke who he had been hiding for so long. Only taking care of boundaries and basic shielding won't put too much stress on him.

"That must be so strange. You're the strangest spirit I've ever seen." The boy grins broadly, his Force presence shining brightly through curtains of sadness.

"Maybe I'm not a spirit then, young one." The boy reminds him of someone, Obi-Wan thinks, someone who he has always joked and played with. Maybe Quinlan before Quin had become a Shadow. "Maybe I'm just lo- locationally challenged." Quinlan would tease him endlessly about getting lost.

"You mean, you're really lost? I didn't think spirits could get lost."

Obi-Wan sighs. "I think my home is far far away from here." He looks up to where the sun shines brightly through a clear blue sky. It is strange after seeing Tatooine's twin suns for years.

The boy sits up excitedly on the balls of his feet, the air rushing around him. "Like the North Pole? I've been to the North Pole!"

"Farther away", Obi-Wan answers with a tight smile. Right now the boy reminds him so much of Anakin that it hurts. "It's probably somewhere out there", he points to the sky. "Somewhere beyond the stars."

"That is so cool." The boy lets himself fall into the snow next to Obi-Wan and looks up. "You're so different from the spirits I've met before. I mean. I'm an air nomad. We used to run and play with the wind spirits all the time."

"Maybe I'm no spirit then. Maybe I'm just dead and lost." It is an unsettling thought. How can he be lost when he is part of the Force?

The boy is up again with a helping of wind. "I don't think you are. Why else would you be here?"

Obi-Wan can't help the smile at those words. He gets out of his sitting position – standing up as a Force ghost is not like moving a body at all – to put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "You are wise-" He loses the words as soon as his hand makes contact – contact! – with the boy's form. The world, the Force moves out of focus, twists and turns around him, a whirlwind of colours without names, only to turn upside down.

As it moves back into focus, the Force is there to sing it's joy around him with four voices that are one. The boy is looking at him with concern. Obi-Wan takes away his hand as though he has been burnt. "You are wise beyond your years", he finishes. The Force has been bright around the boy before. Now it is blinding.

"Er... want to go penguin-sledding with us, Sir Spirit?", the boy tries to distract from the something that has just happened. "Ka- erm, my Water Tribe friend wanted to show me."

"I'm not sure..." Obi-Wan holds his hand in front of the wall of an ice hut. It's no longer transparent but he still doesn't feel the cold. He sticks it into the wall. It just vanishes inside without resistance. "I don't think I can."

The boy sighs. "But you could touch me."

Obi-Wan looks at him with the most serious Councillor face he can muster. "I think we both know why you are different, don't we?"

"Psssht!", the boy suddenly hisses. "Don't say it. Don't tell anyone. I... I don't want them to..."

"...treat you differently?" Oh, Obi-Wan understands that. He has loathed it after Naboo, that everyone suddenly saw the Sith slayer in him, the first Jedi to defeat a Sith in a thousand years. Anakin hadn't been any different. All those people treating him differently because of that damn prophecy. "Your secret is safe with me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have totally thought through how the whole Force ghost not a spirit but not exactly not a spirit either thing is gonna work but none of the characters know about it yet. So that's that. But it's involved with Aang being the Avatar and therefore the Spirit Bridge.  
> Also, I guess liberal amounts of world building? Since I'm not sure how it really is with spirits and spirit etiquette in AtlA (haven't watched LoK yet and the wiki doesn't help much either), I decided to treat them like a mix of gods and fae which means that you really, really shouldn't tell a spirit your name unless you're sure they like you.


	2. The Avatar Returns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't exactly intend to need a chapter per episode (thankfully there's episodes where Zuko's storyline doesn't progress) but I fear that I might have to add some stuff that's happening between episodes because there's gonna be differences now with a Force ghost along for the ride.  
> Also [insert bat screeches] I did not expect so much feedback for my first time writing in AtlA, especially for a crossover?  
> Oh right, fair warning, I tend to hyperfocus a lot while writing which means that I write down like 10k for one story and then forget about it for a while while writing others etc. So while I already have written a bit here and intend to update daily for as long as possible, there's no guarantee.

### Chapter 2 – The Avatar Returns

Obi-Wan isn't sure what went wrong during penguin-sledding. He just knows that there is a flare and that the women of the tribe are afraid, far too afraid for a flare. Unless... the flare signals a danger. He can feel a vague threat in the Force but nothing... nothing like he felt during the war. One hand reflexively goes to his belt where his lightsaber should be but isn't. He lets out a silent string of curses. He can't help here. He's not even sure what is going on but he can't help.

For a moment he considers staying with the village but he's not of help here, so he leaves. Maybe he can find out where the flare came from and what it means.

It takes a climb up a mountain – there is stone beneath layers and layers of ice – to see his answers. Where he approximates the flare to have started, he can make out a dark shape, a foreign object in this white and blue landscape. In the other direction, still out at sea, there's another dark shape just like it. Smoke billows up from it to mingle with the new falling snow. It could be beautiful if it were not for the overwhelming feeling of danger now screaming in his mind along with the just as overwhelming need to return to the village.

He runs back, as well as a ghost can run.

Obi-Wan arrives after the ship has stopped right at the village, the snow wall torn open, the watchtower collapsed. The boy who Obi-Wan thinks to be the Avatar is nowhere to be seen, the boy with the boomerang is being thrown like a rag doll and everyone else is just afraid. Protective of each other but ultimately afraid.

The reason for their fear are three soldiers in reds and blacks and golds, their faces hidden beneath helmets and skull-like masks. They are alight in the Force, their anger flickering hot red in Obi-Wan's mind.

"Where are you hiding him?", shouts the middle one, obviously their leader. He burns brighter than the other soldiers, his anger a palpable thing. Obi-Wan needs a moment to defend himself against it, lest he risk being swept away by it. That's why the next thing he sees is the leader grabbing the eldest woman of the village and shaking her. "He'd be about this age. Master of all elements?"

The Avatar, Obi-Wan thinks. The soldiers are looking for the Avatar. He thinks of the boy in bright clothes soaring through the sky with his glider and of how the boy asked him to keep his identity as the Avatar a secret. He thinks of the boy saying that Obi-Wan isn't lost. Why else would he be here... why, indeed.

Obi-Wan steps forward, his eyes on the ground so he can be sure not to accidentally walk into it. Only once he's halfway between the soldiers and the villagers does he stop and raise his eyes. "You may be looking for me?", he suggests even though he knows otherwise.

The soldier leader scoffs. He's young, Obi-Wan notices. The armour and helmet hide it well but he's young. "You're the Avatar? You don't look like an air nomad. You don't look like anyone from here."

"I'm not from here", Obi-Wan admits freely, "why else would the Avatar have been gone for a hundred years?" It's not exactly a lie, he tells himself. More like a misdirection.

The Force sings a warning and Obi-Wan can barely duck in time as a ball of fire brushes the edges of his form. It's hot, he realizes with a jolt of shock. Since he became a ghost, he's been disconnected from a lot of impressions. The fire is different. It singes him.

Several more flashes of fire follow. His first instinct is to grab his lightsaber – which isn't there. His next instinct is to evade – which would leave the villagers behind him defenceless. So Obi-Wan does the next best thing, the kind of thing that had Cody go grey before his years. He reaches for the Force and channels it the way he has been taught since he was a youngling. Tutaminis abilities are easy to learn and difficult to master. Most Force-users can only use them to dissipate a little heat or a weak current. Master Yoda had achieved a degree where he could nullify blaster bolts and even Force lightning with it.

Obi-Wan tries exactly that now with the fire.

It's an obvious observation but it burns as he stretches out his hand to dissipate it. He's been subjected to Force lightning before. This is different and the same. He can feel the anger fuelling the attack and the pain it is supposed to cause, but where Force lightning is a quick succession of crackling energy dancing over the skin of its victim, this fire is a bright hot assault.

Within a split second Obi-Wan realizes that he's not good enough with Tutaminis to dissipate the fire completely. But he is of the Force and so is the fire which means that he can manipulate it with the Force. He lets it rush in, all bright, hot anger and rage bundled up in flames, lets it flow along the currents of the Force and releases it when the Force tells him to.

It shoots up into the sky and vanishes.

His hands hurt, his fingers even look singed although he's a ghost. He knows that he can keep fighting. He's been through worse and now he's more or less prepared. He also knows that there will be collateral damage and most likely civilian casualties.

"If I go with you", he addresses the soldier leader, "will you leave the village alone?"

The soldier leader, so young, far too young – had Ahsoka been this young when she first commanded clones? – looks him dead in the eye. "You have proven that you can bend fire. What about the other elements?"

Obi-Wan has no idea how this bending is supposed to look like. He has seen the kid, the Avatar use the air and winds around him and this soldier has just produced fire from seemingly nowhere but he hasn't really paid attention to their movements to feel sure about faking them. What he does know is the Force, so he uses it to push one of the soldiers off his feet and backwards.

The soldier leader still eyes him sceptically, then nods. "Very well, if you come with us without causing trouble, we will not touch this village." Obi-Wan bows. "Cuff him."

Wait. Four other soldiers approach him with metal cuffs. One pair for his hands, one for his feet, he guesses. And how is that supposed to work?, he thinks worriedly. He's a ghost and the Avatar should not be. They can't really cuff him. Unless....

Obi-Wan closes his eyes. He will need to concentrate on the Force now and only the Force. He needs to keep up the misdirection until the ship has left the village at least which means that he cannot float or lose the cuffs.

Instead he feels the bright presence of the Avatar closing in above them. He's gliding and ready to attack. Obi-Wan looks up and catches his gaze. He shakes his head. Don't, he tries to communicate with the Force. I'll be fine. The Avatar seems to understand because he doesn't interfere when the soldiers secure the cuffs.

Now Obi-Wan only has to concentrate on levitating them along with his movements while also not stepping into the ground or too far above it. And no glowing.

He can do this. He's been through worse. There's a reason why he's here and it's surely not to fail so soon. He can do this.

The ship, Obi-Wan thinks, is terrible. He wants to compare it to Anakin's flying but he's not sure yet which is worse. It's like riding an eopie. It goes back and forth and back and forth and to the sides and back and forth and he constantly has to adjust his stance while levitating the cuffs and not sinking into the metal floor of his cell. At least, since he's dead, he can't get sea sick. He's heard of it but between space travel, negotiations and war he hasn't had a chance to try it. Considering his current reaction, he's glad about that.

He lets the cuffs fall for a moment to reach out with his perception. He can feel the Avatar and the girl with the sad eyes. Very faintly, he can feel the boy with the boomerang. He cannot feel the eldest, nor the younger children. There are just these three he can make out and they are... closing in.

Obi-Wan frowns. As far as he can tell, the ship has not changed directions since they left the Water Tribe village, so... if the children are closing in, that must mean that they are following him and the ship... which puts his whole misdirection in danger.

He looks at the cuffs on the floor and sighs. Then he may as well end the deception now and tell the Avatar to run. After all, the soldiers can't really hurt him apart from their fire but that he can defend against, so Obi-Wan feels secure enough on the ship. Once it stops going back and forth and sideways, he amends.

There's no time to wait for a port, though, so Obi-Wan pulls the Force around him and pushes the cell door out of its hinges. He could probably step through it but it doesn't feel right and he's not sure if he wants people to find out about his ghostness just yet.

At least, that's what should have happened. Instead it doesn't budge even a finger's width. All he has managed is a little dent.

He frowns. Metal doors, especially sealed ones are never easy to open with the Force. That's why Jedi usually use their lightsabers instead to cut through this kind of obstacle. But... He's a Jedi Master. He should be able to unhinge a door as long as it's no deadbolt locked door.

He pushes again.

And again.

And again.

Until, finally, the door swings open. Obi-Wan has just a moment to rejoice because immediately after he is faced with one of the ship's crew, an older man in comfortable clothes. The soldier leader had addressed him as uncle if Obi-Wan recalled correctly. Now that he's no longer concentrating on his cuffs or trying to blast open the door, he notices the man's presence. Not as bright as the Avatar's, but strong. Very strong. And, unlike all the others on the ship with brighter presences, he is completely calm and centred instead of angry.

The old man's gaze – although, maybe he isn't that old, Obi-Wan admits, since the man doesn't look much older than himself – goes to the cuffs at the ground and to Obi-Wan's feet that... no, they are perfectly well on the ground. What then caught the man's attention?... There's no shadow. "I thought that this might happen", the man speaks.

Obi-Wan clears his throat. "That what might happen?"

The man gives him _a look_. "You freeing yourself. You're not the Avatar." The man sits down comfortably on the metal floor of the cell. Obi-Wan, who still doesn't do well with the waves rocking the ship, follows suit. "At first I thought you to be a spirit. You're... there's something about you which reminds me of the spirit world, but you're not a spirit, are you?"

Obi-Wan looks at the cuffs and at his missing shadow. There's no point in deception now and even if he tried, the man most likely would not believe him. "You're right", he admits. "I'm not the Avatar, nor am I, to my knowledge, a spirit." He runs a hand through his hair. "You can call me Ben."

The man nods in understanding. "You may call me Iroh. Would you care for a cup of tea? I think this conversation is best held in more comfortable quarters."

"I'd love to..." Obi-Wan interrupts himself. Yes, he'd love a cup of tea. He hasn't had a decent one in years because Tatooine isn't exactly known for its tea culture. Still, the problem persists, that he can't. Ghosts can't drink, after all, can they? "I appreciate the offer, but I have to decline." Demonstratively he waves his hand through the floor. "Where I'm from, I'd be called a ghost. I fear your tea will go to waste with me."

Iroh hums to himself. "Such a shame."

"Believe me, I know. It's been nineteen years since I've had a good cup of tea." Probably more. Most of the tea he drank during the Clone Wars had been habitually brewed while stewing over war plans. "Exile", he explains when Iroh looks at him questioningly, "in a desert."

"That would do it." Iroh gets up with a groan. "I hope you don't mind if I brew myself a cup once we reach my quarters. Follow me."

Iroh's quarters remind Obi-Wan eerily of his own on the _Negotiator_ during the Clone Wars. A bed, a – low – desk to mull over strategies and routes, a banner of the sovereign, a tea set, some cushions to sit on and a few trinkets to give a feel of home but none that are of such value that they would be missed if the ship sank or was destroyed. Well, he's guessing about the trinkets but he's fairly sure that he's correct in his assumptions.

"Have a seat", Iroh says while bustling through his quarters to make his tea.

"Thank you." Obi-Wan picks the cushion that allows him to keep Iroh and the door within sight.

He has just settled into a comfortable position – he can't touch his surroundings but he can feel his own body and he's not as young as he used to be, so a comfortable sitting position is well appreciated by his Force ghost joints – when he's interrupted by a Force presence full of anger rapidly approaching Iroh's quarters. The soldier leader, he guesses. Iroh's nephew.

"Uncle!", the door is busted open, "the Avatar- what are you doing here?"

"Prince Zuko", Iroh addresses the young soldier leader, "how nice of you to join us. Would you like a cup of tea?"

"I don't need your tea!", the young man addressed as Prince Zuko yells angrily. "I want answers! Now! Why did you release the Avatar?"

Obi-Wan coughs into his sleeve. "Technically, I released myself from those cuffs. Your uncle just happened to open the cell door before I could bust it open. So, instead of doing something brash we decided to talk."

The young man, no, the teen, Obi-Wan amends now that he can see the prince without his armour and helmet, seems choked on all the words he wants to say at the same time. He's a teen, barely older than Ahsoka when she got her first military command. He's a teen and he's angry, so full of anger... He reminds Obi-Wan of Anakin in that regard. Quickly, Obi-Wan stomps the thought before it can hurt. The teen's most obvious identifying marks, at least to someone with eyes instead of the Force, are the massive scar over the left side of his face and the head shorn bald apart from that one ponytail. Obi-Wan has seen stranger things. "But it's metal!", is what comes out of the prince's mouth in the end. "Not even the Avatar can bend metal."

Obi-Wan chuckles. "About that... I'm not the Avatar. You can call me Ben and I'm... more of a traveller, I think."

"But you-!"

"I didn't correct your misassumption of my identity, that is true", Obi-Wan admits, "but it was the right thing to do." The Avatar is just a child, after all. Child warriors and now this teen who seems to command a warship... Obi-Wan thinks of Padmé who freed her planet from an invasion... she can't have been older than this prince. "Please sit, I'm not going to run or fight and I think we owe it each other and your uncle to discuss these matters in a civilised manner."

The prince scoffs something about Water Tribe savages but sits. Iroh nods approvingly.

The Force flares to life with a feeling of rightness. Obi-Wan looks at Iroh and at his nephew, the prince. The Force sings its approval, swirling in new currents and patterns. It hasn't been this clear in showing his path since... probably since he insisted on taking on Anakin as his Padawan after Qui-Gon's death.

"Would you like a cup of tea now, nephew?"

"Fine", the teen grumbles and sounds so much like Anakin after an unloved meditation exercise that Obi-Wan has to bite down a comment about young Padawans needing to learn respect of the old traditions and proper tea.

They sit in silence while the smell of tea slowly fills the cabin. Obi-Wan can't tell the blend, the tea leaves are different here and he has no idea what any of the other ingredients are called. He can tell that the tea would be very bitter if not for the spices, Iroh added. He wishes he could taste it.

Iroh sets down a cup in front of his nephew and sits down with another in his own hands. "Now we can talk."

"Uncle?" The prince, despite his angry and grumbling disposition, seems to know manners since he pointedly looks at the empty space in front of Obi-Wan.

"Your uncle is not being impolite", Obi-Wan answers in Iroh's stead. "It's just that-" A tremor rumbles the ship. Obi-Wan is on his feet immediately reaching for his belt to- ah, right. No lightsaber. No weapon at all. All he can do is reach out into the Force and hope it's not... "It's the Avatar."

The prince and Iroh have jumped to their feet as well. "The Avatar?", the prince yells and runs off immediately.

Iroh gives Obi-Wan another _look_ that he can interpret even without the Force.

The Avatar is on deck, the other two water tribe children with him as well as that big six-legged animal that, apart from the colouring, reminds Obi-Wan of a Bantha.

"You're just a bunch of kids!", the prince yells.

"And you're just a teenager", the Avatar counters. "Let Ben go!"

Obi-Wan steps between them. "That's enough. Although I am flattered, Avatar, there's no need to fight for me." He looks at the Avatar – one day he will ask the kid for his name, as well as the Water Tribe children – pleadingly. "I'm fine. I'm where I want to be right now and I can leave any time. So, please, leave. You have other duties."

It's a mistake to concentrate on the Avatar. The Force screams of danger in the exact moment that the prince releases a fireball. "Not so fast!"

Obi-Wan drops, the fireball barely missing his form. Instead it speeds towards the Avatar who twirls his staff in both hands. The flames dissipate in a whirl of wind.

Immediately, Obi-Wan gets back on his feet. It's been a while since he really had to fight but the instincts are still there and the Force sings of warnings and guidance and opportunities to strike and defend. He spins out of a fireball's way, steps back to evade a gust of wind which hits the prince straight in the chest, only to be hit himself by a whip of... water? How can he be hit by the water?

"Go!", he orders the kids like he would have ordered his troops twenty years ago. Just like then, he trusts his orders to be followed, so he turns his back to them and faces the prince and Iroh instead. Iroh... looks conflicted. The prince is just furious. "I guess we're not getting back to that cup of tea anytime soon, right?"

Obi-Wan can't even finish his question before he has to duck out of another flame's way. The prince's anger makes it burn even hotter. It's only instinct that has Obi-Wan speed forward and throw a blow at the prince... which proves particularly ineffective as it just moves through his hastily thrown up block.

"Ah, kriff", Obi-Wan mutters at the same time that the prince's eyes widen in shocked realization.

"Now, Prince Zuko, can we please stop the fight?", Iroh speaks up. "Ben will surely answer our questions and explain his actions if you stop attacking him."

Prince Zuko just throws another flaming fist at Obi-Wan. This time he's not ducking or evading. The ship is damaged enough. He reaches for it in the Force and now, that he knows what he's doing, it's easier to guide it into the sky.

"The next one", Obi-Wan interrupts the prince as he readies himself for another attack, "I will guide down the chimney of your ship which should lead it straight into the engine room and cause considerable damage."

The prince hesitates, the scar caused glare emphasized by his angry scowl. Then he lets out a gust of flame and smoke from his mouth and stomps towards the door that leads below deck. "Fine! Lieutenant Jee, plot a course to follow the Avatar's bison." With a painful creak a part of the ship's railing and hull breaks away. "After you're done with that."

"Prince Zuko, we can't repair something like that at sea", a man, probably Lieutenant Jee answers. "We have to make port."

"Then plot a course to the next available port!" The prince slams the door to below deck closed.

Iroh sighs heavily.

Obi-Wan can relate. "I've once taught a student like him. The resemblance is eerie."

"What happened to your student?"

He doesn't dare meet Iroh's gaze. "I failed him. In the end he destroyed everything he loved and himself." Below deck he can feel the prince simmering in rage, far above, rapidly gaining in distance, he can feel the Avatar and the Water Tribe kids comforting each other through confusion. "I know that I'm supposed to be here for the moment, with you and the prince. Maybe that's why."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could have also named this the chapter of "Zuko yells a lot". Anyway, yeay for Iroh knowing stuff \o/  
> When will Obi-Wan learn more about bending? When will he tell what exactly happened to his student who was so much like Zuko? eeeeeeh. I know. More or less. It really all depends on the characters cooperating and we all know how well characters cooperate.  
> Next chapter's gonna be shorter but will have some explanations before we move onwards to the Southern Air Temple and, hoooo boy, writing the Southern Air Temple is.... well. Well. We (or most of us) know what Obi-Wan knows of temples that were stormed by soldiers, right?


	3. Explanations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, so this chapter is more of an interlude but I didn't really want to put it at the end of the last one because then I was still thinking of not writing chapters longer than 5k... now I'm writing the Southern Air Temple, have reached 4k and Zuko and Zhao have just started to argue the part before they yell at each other about fighting an Agni Kai.  
> Anyway, this interlude is comparably short but will hopefully answer some questions.

### Chapter 3 – Explanations

They are back in Iroh's quarters. He's brewed a new cup of tea and the prince is fuming about as much as the cup in front of him. "I want an explanation. Now."

"And you shall have it", Obi-Wan bows his head slightly. "Where do you want me to start?"

"You could tell us who you are." Iroh savours the taste of his tea with closed eyes. "You're not a human but you're not spirit either."

"I am human", Obi-Wan argues. "Or, well, I was. Now I'm... I'm not completely sure, actually. Where I come from, I died. Was killed. It's a matter of perspective, really. I should have become one with the Force then but I didn't, not completely. Instead I am here and I'm not alive, obviously", he waves through the table, "but I'm not a Force ghost the way I should be... I'm sorry, I can't really answer that question because I don't have any answers either."

"What is this Force? I've never heard of it." It's amusing how it's Iroh who asks the questions when it was Prince Zuko who had demanded answers.

"It's..." Obi-Wan is at a loss on how to explain the Force to people who probably also never heard of Jedi. "It's a kind of energy field that binds all living things together and my people believe, well, believed that when we die we become one with the Force again." There is no death, there is the Force, he quotes the old mantra mentally. "Everyone is surrounded by and bound to the Force but some people, like me, can sense the Force better than others. With enough training a Je- a person like me can use the Force to guide them in battle or to levitate things. Or to redirect fireblasts", he adds pointedly with a look at Prince Zuko.

Prince Zuko pointedly drinks a sip of his tea. "That doesn't answer who you are. Why were you aiding the Avatar? Why didn't you flee with the Avatar? You're just another infuriating old man."

"Patience, Prince Zuko", Obi-Wan chides calmly. "I can't answer all your questions at once. As for who I am? As I said, you can call me Ben and I'm some kind of ghost who ended up here for reasons I don't know. Why did I aid the Avatar? Because it's the right thing to do."

"That makes you an enemy of the Fire Nation. We should throw you overboard!"

Obi-Wan raises one eyebrow as a very similar memory sneaks into his mind. _If you're not with me, then you're my enemy_ , he can hear Anakin say again on that platform with Padmé's unconscious form lying behind him. There are many things Obi-Wan wants to say now to the prince. Throw him overboard? How? And what then? Just let him float after the ship? Because Obi-Wan is fairly sure that he can't sink or drown in his current state. "Rescuing and protecting a child makes me an enemy of the Fire Nation? I'm not sure I want to be the Fire Nation's ally then."

There's a choking sound from Iroh but it's drowned out by Prince Zuko's vehement arguing. "He's the Avatar! It's different."

"You called him a child yourself two teacups ago on deck", Obi-Wan remarks almost casually. There's another strangled sound from Iroh which is quickly hidden with a sip of tea. "Tell me, since I don't know anything about this place, why is the Avatar an enemy of the Fire Nation?"

Iroh clears his throat. "The Avatar is the only person who can master all four elements. They are born in one of the four nations, Fire Nation, Earth Kingdom, Water Tribes or, before they were killed, the Air Nomads. Then they live and keep the balance among the four elements and die to be reborn in the next element of the cycle."

"Balance doesn't sound so wrong to me", Obi-Wan comments. He remembers a prophecy about the Chosen One bringing balance to the Force and how Anakin has failed them all, probably, but he doesn't want to think about that now.

"The Avatar has stagnated the world", Prince Zuko snarls. "The Fire Nation is bringing progress and the Avatar opposes us on this quest. That's why Roku, the last known Avatar, betrayed my great-grandfather Fire Lord Sozin."

There's so much venom in the prince's words that Obi-Wan has to gulp down the nausea rising. He's heard words like these before in Imperial propaganda. The Empire is bringing stability. The Jedi Order has kept the Republic stagnant and corrupted it. The Jedi betrayed the Emperor.

Obi-Wan forces a smile on his face. He knows that it doesn't reach his eyes. "Progress is a worthy goal", he says and it is only due to years upon years of having been a negotiator in planetary and interplanetary conflicts that he sounds mostly genuine, "and I am no stranger to those in power becoming corrupt. I am sure, if you let me stay with you, you can show me the failings of the Avatar and the righteousness of the Fire Nation's quest."

Prince Zuko squints, his Force presence radiating mistrust. "Fine. You can stay aboard." He rises from his kneeling position. "But if you help the Avatar again, you will be considered an enemy of the Fire Nation and treated like one."

"Lifelong imprisonment or execution", Iroh comments, "depending on the severity of the crime."

Obi-Wan bites his lips. He shouldn't speak up now. The prince, as much as he resembles Anakin, has not had years of Jedi training to calm down and think like a Jedi. The prince is continuously burning with shades of anger but at least at the moment he seems inclined to listen to Obi-Wan and he should not lose that advantage.

"So", he hears himself say despite his better knowledge, "that's what's going to happen once you capture the Avatar? Lifelong imprisonment or execution?"

"No. I mean- My father wouldn't- The Avatar is just a child!" Prince Zuko is a cloud of inner conflict and turmoil as he storms off.

Iroh refills his tea cup with a long suffering sigh. "My brother, the current Fire Lord, would", he says, hurt filling every syllable. "He is not a merciful man and there will come a time when my nephew will have to realize that."

"I think, part of him already knows." After all, there would not be such conflict roiling through the Force around Prince Zuko, if he didn't. "You know, I know propaganda when I hear it... For some reason you're not correcting him and I won't interfere with that since you know your nephew and this world far better than I do, but..." He's not sure what to say.

Iroh hums into his tea. "My nephew has only ever known and learnt the teachings of the Fire Nation. These last years I've been trying to show him the world beyond what my brother wanted him to see... with little success as you can see. I would not mind a little help in asking him the right questions." A gentle smile plays around Iroh's lips. "Just don't rush him, Ben. He is, above all, stubborn."

Obi-Wan chuckles. "So am I, Iroh. So am I."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> or the interlude where people try to become familiar with each other but it's really all very awkward. I fear it will stay awkward for a while longer as long as they tell each other half truths and omissions and certain points of view.  
> Also, I am very proud of comparing Zuko to a cup of tea. Very, very proud.


	4. The Southern Air Temple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so, Southern Air Temple \o/ Except what I wanted to have in this chapter didn't fit and it reached the 5k mark and then I decided to use the cut possibility to actually cut it there and write an addendum chapter after this where we get a lot of Air nomad stuff etc.

### Chapter 4 – The Southern Air Temple

"Again!", Iroh's voice cuts through the sea noises above the deck.

Prince Zuko has been running sequences, or katas as they are called here, all afternoon but Iroh has him do them again and again. To Obi-Wan's Force senses, the prince's frustration is tangible but he's not the prince's Master and therefore shouldn't interfere.

"There's still one thing about this firebending that I don't understand", he says while trying to actually stand on deck next to Iroh. It's a process that needs him to adjust his position relatively to the deck all the time since it's always in motion with the waves. "Where do you get the fire from?" He thinks it's similar to Force lightning but he couldn't exactly ask a Sith about the basics of shooting lightning from his fingers since they were too busy killing him. So, if he understands this fire, then he can maybe also understand how Force lightning works and how to stop it when he doesn't have a lightsaber at hand.

"Hmmm", Iroh makes a thinking noise. "It is said that our firebending comes from Agni, the spirit of the sun. Those, who are blessed by the sun carry a piece of her fire with them-"

"Uncle!", Prince Zuko interrupts. "You can't just tell him Fire Nation secrets!"

"The spirits do not belong to any one nation", Iroh chides him icily. Iroh, who is mostly a jovial, calm man who only raises his voice when running the prince through his katas, suddenly looks like a very different individual. A bit like Master Yoda, maybe, if Obi-Wan goes by the sudden shift in his Force presence. "Neither does knowledge of the spirits", he continues more calmly.

"But you can't teach someone not Fire Nation about firebending", the prince continues to protest.

Obi-Wan evaluates the situation. He could press for an answer but it will turn the prince against him, probably also part of the crew that he is only slowly getting to know. Also, he has a feeling that he will get his answer sooner or later anyway and he's not in a hurry. "I don't need to know. Go back to your katas, Prince Zuko."

Prince Zuko glares at Obi-Wan. "You have no right to tell me what to do."

"No, I do not." That's the only difference right now between Prince Zuko and Anakin. Anakin he could tell what to do even when Anakin became as angry as this. Or as petulant as this. "But as your elder it is my place to give you a piece of advice." The prince glares but does not protest this time. "Practice your basics. Practice them until you no longer need to think about them. It'll keep you alive in the long term."

Prince Zuko scoffs and turns away. "What do you know?", Obi-Wan can hear him mutter along with something about old men and that he's no longer a child.

"I've been training with a saber since I could walk", Obi-Wan answers. "And I survived active field duty and war and exile because I knew my basics." He thinks of Grievous and his four arms and lightsabers and how he only survived those battles because he had a solid defence. "Patience is essential to mastering any ability."

"That's what I always say", Iroh agrees mischievously. "Now run the kata again."

"Maybe you should demonstrate again?", Obi-Wan suggests. "When I taught Anakin, it usually helped a lot to let him take a break, then demonstrate another time and have him run through it again." At least it had helped with lightsaber combat. Anakin has never done well with the meditation techniques Obi-Wan taught him.

"Land, ho!", Tao, the soldier currently on lookout duty, interrupts their training. "We're nearing port!"

"Finally", Prince Zuko grumbles and proceeds to proclaim his training for today finished by moving into the cooldown stretches. The firebending soldier who has partnered with him during the last kata does the same. Obi-Wan feels the waves of relief and exhaustion flooding over him.

Obi-Wan moves over to that soldier while Prince Zuko and Iroh are already on their way to Lieutenant Jee and the helmsman to get everything ready for... Obi-Wan's not sure what the exact nautical term is. Sailing into the harbour?

The soldier looks around, doesn't see what he's looking for and slumps against the railing. He takes off his helmet and just breathes.

"So", Obi-Wan tries to start a little talk, "that was a hard training exercise then?" They had been doing a lot of kicks and jumps. To Obi-Wan it hadn't looked that hard but these people aren't Jedi so he can't measure them by what he learned and can do. Could do. He's dead now.

"Not for this ship", the soldier answers once he has his breath back. "General Iroh runs these kind of drills regularly. I'm just...", he needs to pause to breathe some more, "I only got back four weeks ago from medical leave and have to catch up."

"It won't help to overexert yourself", Obi-Wan says with a frown. "You'll never heal properly if you don't rest enough." Not that Obi-Wan is one who should talk here, seeing how he was back on his feet within days after having his leg impaled by Dooku on Geonosis. Bant had bombarded him with some choice words then but they were at war and he was needed.

"I don't need the rest", the soldier lies so obviously that Obi-Wan doesn't even need to Force to tell him it's a lie. "You're not like what they say about spirits."

Obi-Wan chuckles. "I'm pretty sure I'm not a spirit. Is that what everyone thinks? I was wondering why the crew is avoiding me even though you are all curious."

The soldier looks slightly panicked at the realization that he has said something he probably didn't want to say. "Erm... what else could you be? Lee, the cook, said you do not eat and Huan saw you glowing blue at night and erm," the soldier clears his throat, "you're floating right now."

Obi-Wan looks at the deck and sighs. It is a headache to always concentrate on where his feet should be. He just can't tell where the deck is and constantly reaching for it in the Force and readjusting his form is draining. "This would not be such a problem if I still had my cloak", he grumbles. "But, to answer the crew's question, I am not a spirit. I'm just not alive either." As the soldier pales, Obi-Wan registers that this might be an even worse thing to say. As a Jedi he grew up with tales of Force ghosts and the knowledge that upon his death he would become one with the Force. Apparently, these people, despite the spirits of their world, do not take such things as granted and calmly. "I'm not an enemy", he tries to remedy the situation.

"But you're not Fire Nation."

That, Obi-Wan thinks, is going to become very tiresome really soon. "No, I'm not but that doesn't automatically make me an enemy of the Fire Nation, does it? I come from so far away, I've never heard of the Fire Nation before I got... locationally challenged at the South Pole."

The soldier thinks for a moment. "So you're like from beyond the Western Isles?"

Obi-Wan looks at the sky and thinks: No, I'm not from beyond the Western Isles. He says: "From a certain point of view, yes. I was called Ben Kenobi there and I was a warrior in a way." He'd only been called Ben in exile but that's close enough to the truth, wasn't it?

"You're really not a spirit, are you?", the soldier asks and there is still a guarded wariness around him in the Force but he's slowly coming around. "I'm Liu and, like everyone else here, I've served under General Iroh before. He's a good man and we care about him."

"So you'll shoot me full of fire if I cause trouble for him?", Obi-Wan finishes Liu's sentence. "I'll keep it in mind... what did you mean about serving Iroh 'before'?", he asks as he notices that particular phrase.

"Before er...-"

"Stations!", Lieutenant Jee's command voice interrupts Liu. "Liu, Huan, you're at the anchor, Jingxi, you go help Shang in the engine room!"

"Sorry", Liu ducks apologetically, "I have to run."

Before what?, Obi-Wan is left to wonder as the ship slowly makes its way into the port where it docks next to a whole group of bigger, better intact ships. Something is strange about all this, he thinks to himself. He wonders if Iroh will tell him if he asks.

It's a military base, Obi-Wan realizes. He's very careful not to float where he should not float. He even figured out how to use a continuous Force push to lean on the railing – the undamaged part of it at least.

There are soldiers and workers bustling around in their busy routines. It reminds Obi-Wan so much of the Clone Wars that he half expects a Venator-class Stardestroyer to land any second. It's of course also very different. The armours and uniforms are black and red and gold. There are only humans working. No Duros, no Twi'leks. There's no starfighters, no Laaties and no star destroyers. No Jedi and no clone soldiers.

There's mostly fear in the air, he realizes. Their bases in the Clone Wars had also always held that presence in the Force. Fear, in war, was practical. It kept you alive. But, unless they were just being attacked, fear had always been more of an undercurrent to the – then at least – absolute loyalty of the clones, their bonds to each other and the occasional laughter when they told each other jokes in the safety of their helmet comlinks. He can feel those things here, too, nearly drowned beneath fear and wariness.

Iroh and Prince Zuko leave the ship. Obi-Wan sends a questioning glance at Iroh and gets a shake of his head in return. He's not supposed to leave the ship. Too bad. He'd give a lot to have not-moving ground beneath his feet again. Still, he's not here to cause trouble. He will watch and learn and figure out what it is he's supposed to do here.

He wonders what kind of commander runs a base like this.

The answer to that question at least appears soon enough. Tarkin, the darkest part of Obi-Wan's mind snarls. Tarkin, the ruthless, cruel, speciecist, sexist, mass murdering scum. Tarkin who gave the order to destroy the whole planet of Alderaan with all the people on them.

The man's not Tarkin, of course. When Obi-Wan looks at him with his eyes, there's little similarity between them except for the grey hair and the cruel touch to their expressions. This man wears the reds and blacks and golds of the Fire Nation not the dull greens of a Grand Moff's uniform. His stature and gestures are all different but in the Force... oh, in the Force he is just as revolting to Obi-Wan's senses, except that Tarkin at least had been cold precision while this man is just unrestrained emotional assault.

Obi-Wan clamps down on his mental shields. 

"Ben?", Iroh calls. "Ben?"

"Hmmm?", he reacts. Too late, he thinks as he sees the three's faces. "Yes?"

"Commander Zhao has invited us for tea while our ship is being repaired", Iroh explains. Obi-Wan is sure that the invitation is more of a thinly veiled threat since a commander can't order around a prince. Probably. He's not sure about the hierarchy here. "Since you are our guest his invitation extends to you."

Obi-Wan sends out a question of confusion and "how am I supposed to drink tea?" into the Force before he remembers that there's no one around who can understand him in that way. He stomps down the painful void in his being where once thousands of Jedi have been while he bows respectfully. "It would be my honour."

He bites down a few choice swears in Huttese as he makes to walk down the ramp. It's moving. The ship's moving. Everything is moving and he has to make sure that his feet seem to land on the ramp instead of in or under it.

A Jedi does not hate but Obi-Wan seriously considers it right now.

The commander – Zhao, is it? – bows once Obi-Wan joins their little group. It's more of a nod, actually, the kind of not-exactly-a-bow that Qui-Gon has often enough given the Council when he not agreed with their decision. The kind of bow that looks polite to an observer but is actually very rude and just not enough of an insult to get serious about it. "Welcome at my humble base. I'm Commander Zhao of the Fire Nation's fleet."

Obi-Wan returns the bow just as slightly rude. He remembers power plays like this from his days as a negotiator and he knows that it will only be troublesome if he backs down. "I'm honoured to witness the Fire Nation's military prowess. They call me Ben Kenobi, Master of the Jedi High Council, retired High General of the Grand Army of the Republic." He doesn't like pulling rank but if this man really is like Tarkin, it's the only thing that works.

Commander Zhao frowns. "I can see that you're from far away and I've never heard of a Jedi High Council or the Grand Army of the Republic. I'd be delighted to hear more about it over tea."

Iroh smiles and there's a mischievous tint to his Force presence. "I'm sure a man like you can offer ginseng."

Commander Zhao bites his lips, Prince Zuko doesn't react and Iroh seems oddly pleased with himself.

Obi-Wan decides not to ask.

Commander Zhao's quarters – albeit being a tent – are much more spacious than Iroh's on the ship. Maybe the hierarchy is different here but Obi-Wan always considered a general to be of higher rank, but then... he also didn't expect a prince to be so blatantly overruled by a commander.

"Please, sit down", Commander Zhao offers a place at his low table on one of the sitting cushions. Obi-Wan chooses the place where he can keep the door and Commander Zhao in his view. Force of habit. "Soldier", Commander Zhao addresses one of the soldiers that have followed them here. "Get four cups of tea from the refectory. Jasmine for me, ginseng for the esteemed General Iroh and the prince. As for our guest..."

"I'm afraid I have to decline your tea", Obi-Wan interrupts him easily with a smile that's just as insincere as Commander Zhao's. "For spiritual reasons." Meaning that he can't drink as a ghost.

"Such a shame. Three cups of tea, soldier. Get going." Commander Zhao turns back to Obi-Wan. "I would have loved to show an outsider the Fire Nation's famed spiced tea."

"I'm sure that the length of my diplomatic stay will allow me to try it another time."

"Of course." Commander Zhao, Obi-Wan notices, is far better at the diplomatic games than Prince Zuko. He wants to blame it on the prince being so young but there's a lot to it all that just doesn't fit and this is just another piece. "Right to the matter at hand then. I understand that you are on a diplomatic mission? I was not informed that we would have such an important guest like a High General."

Prince Zuko scoffs disdainfully. "Why would a mere commander need to know?"

Brash, Obi-Wan thinks. Not unlike Anakin when he tried to be diplomatic. "You were not informed because the Republic is not aware of your existence." And most likely never will be. "After all, the Republic is located far beyond the Western Isles as you call them here." Far beyond the stars. "It's not unusual that someone like me is sent out to explore beyond our current territory and start first diplomatic relations or negotiate trade routes and contracts." It hadn't been unusual before the Republic became an Empire. C'Baoth's Outbound Flight had been the most pompous of these kind of projects but not the only one. "Judging from what I've seen so far, the Fire Nation seems to hold the power in these waters."

"You're a good judge of politics then."

"I'm also an excellent judge of character", Obi-Wan retorts.

The tent's flap opens and the soldier returns with three cups of tea he puts down silently on the low table before leaving just as quietly.

"Maybe so", Commander Zhao admit, "but I fear that you are accompanying the wrong people to form diplomatic relations with the Fire Nation. General Iroh is, as he likes to point out, retired and Prince Zuko..." He trails off. Obi-Wan gets a feeling that he won't like the implications of these words.

"Please regale me with Fire Nation interna", Obi-Wan says in a voice that could cut beskar. "They are the Fire Lord's brother and son, are they not? Who better to form diplomatic relations with?"

He can feel the suppressed joy from Iroh, the confusion and conflict of Prince Zuko and most of all the massive conflict within Commander Zhao. Obi-Wan can guess what it is about. Wanting to embarrass Prince Zuko in front of a foreign nation dignitary versus not wanting to offer Fire Nation interna to a foreigner.

The resentment towards Prince Zuko wins out considering his next words. With faux concern Commander Zhao shakes his head. "It pains me to inform you that Prince Zuko is a prince in name only. He was banished for his blatant disrespect towards the Fire Lord and our great nation. Two years at sea do not seem to have mended his shameful behaviour."

"How dare you-!", Prince Zuko's anger flares up like an ignited lightsaber as he jumps to his feet.

"You're an embarrassment to the Fire Nation", Commander Zhao shoots back. "What kind of impression of the Fire Nation's might and glory is this man supposed to get from a banished prince on a derelict vessel?"

"What kind of impression is he going to get from a commander who doesn't know his place?"

"Currently", Iroh leans over to Obi-Wan without the two noticing, "both are an embarrassment to the Fire Nation."

Obi-Wan shrugs. "I've seen worse, although usually from opposing factions."

"Who among us doesn't know his place, huh?" Commander Zhao is taller than Prince Zuko, older, probably stronger and more experienced. He uses all those physical advantages as he spits out the next question. "How's the search for the Avatar going?"

There's a hidden meaning behind those words. Actually, there's a lot of this whole talk he will have to ponder later.

"Not that it's any of your business but we haven't found him yet", Prince Zuko replies a bit calmer but with a nasty glare that basically dares Commander Zhao to do something rash now.

Commander Zhao laughs. "Did you really expect to? The Avatar died a hundred years ago along with the rest of the airbenders. Unless... you have found evidence that proves otherwise?"

Prince Zuko's glare hardens. "No."

That's, of course, when the tent flap is opened again and two soldiers step in. "Commander Zhao, we've interrogated the crew as instructed."

"What?", Prince Zuko shouts.

Iroh's expression turns cold. "Commander Zhao, what is the meaning of this?"

Commander Zhao ignores both. "What did you find?"

"The prince has found the Avatar at the South Pole and fought him. He's an airbender, about as old as General Iroh and..." The soldier's voice trails off as he sees Obi-Wan.

"A foreigner?", Commander Zhao finishes with something like glee in his voice. "Prince Zuko, would you enlighten me why you have not brought the Avatar before the Fire Lord yet and instead drink tea with him?"

Obi-Wan clears his throat. "It's true that I fought Prince Zuko and that I can manipulate air to a degree but I'm not the Avatar. The prince mistakenly captured me as the Avatar but that misunderstanding has been cleared after another violent altercation... which might have damaged the ship." Obi-Wan smiles jovially. "Please, sit, Commander. There's no proof that the Avatar is alive. As you said, it's been a hundred years."

Commander Zhao suddenly holds a lot of similarity to Mace during Council meetings where they had to talk over some misconduct of Anakin or – less often – of Obi-Wan himself. He's always teased Mace about his blood pressure. Commander Zhao looks ready to pop a vein. "Enough", he growls. "I'll interrogate the crew myself. Keep them here!"

The soldiers nod in acknowledgement and Commander Zhao leaves the tent.

Iroh sighs in resignation. "That could have gone better."

Prince Zuko's only answer is an enraged yell before he splits the table into two with a kick.

Iroh sighs again and this time Obi-Wan recognizes it as the exact same sigh that he would let out whenever Anakin has done something particularly stupid. Like get caught for illegal racing in the lower levels of Coruscant. Or illegally marry a senator. Or... Obi-Wan can continue the list for hours without repeating himself.

They aren't left alone for long. Soon enough Commander Zhao struts back into the tent like a man who got the answers he wants. He's also angry. Obi-Wan wonders shortly if that's a pattern with the Fire Nation.

"You think you're so clever, don't you?", Commander Zhao fumes. "Did you think you could just omit the detail that you met the actual Avatar? A twelve-year-old kid? And were bested by him? You're more pathetic than I thought."

"He wasn't fighting alone." A better liar would not have looked at Obi-Wan at that statement. Prince Zuko, as it turns out, is a very bad liar.

"Ah, yes, the mysterious traveller who helped the Avatar." Commander Zhao narrows his eyes. "Part of the crew insists that you're a spirit of the frozen plains come to take revenge on the Fire Nation." He scoffs. "You're just a man."

Obi-Wan shrugs into the Force. "Maybe so."

Commander Zhao glares at him. "I should deliver all of you to the Fire Lord for treason but, out of respect for the retired General Iroh, you'll be escorted back to your ship and are free to go once my search party is on the way."

"Why?", Prince Zuko clenches his fists. "Are you afraid I'd find the Avatar first?"

Commander Zhao bursts into laughter. "You? Impossible."

"Don't underestimate me, Zhao. I will capture the Avatar before you." Prince Zuko rises to stand in front of Commander Zhao now. They remind Obi-Wan eerily of Anoobas during mating season. All they'd need to complete the look is bristled fur and growling.

Iroh rises as well. "Prince Zuko, that's enough", he commands sternly. Both ignore him in favour of staring at each other. Exactly like Anoobas during mating season.

"You can't compete with me", Commander Zhao spits out. "I've got hundreds of warships under my command and you've got nothing. No home, no allies. You're just a banished prince. Not even your father wants you."

Obi-Wan's eyebrows rise despite himself. He tries not to think too much of the sharp spike of pain in Prince Zuko's Force presence at those words or the way Iroh flinches. The answers will present themselves in time.

"You're wrong!", Prince Zuko yells back. "Once I deliver the Avatar to my father, he'll welcome me home with honour and restore my rightful place on the throne!"

Now Obi-Wan is pretty sure that both aren't just ignoring Iroh but him as well. Prince Zuko is so similar to the younger Anakin... and the younger Anakin would never have said something like that in front of strangers.

"If your father really wanted you home, he would have let you return by now, Avatar or not." Another sharp spike of pain. "But in his eyes you're a failure", and another, "a disgrace", and another, "and embarrassment to the Fire Nation."

"That's not true!", Prince Zuko all but explodes. "My father-"

"You have the scar to prove it!"

Obi-Wan throws a glance at Iroh who flinches again. There are things written in the Force around him that Obi-Wan doesn't want to know. Mostly guilt. It's a familiar feeling to Obi-Wan.

"Maybe you'd like one to match!", Prince Zuko yells back, his voice quivering with fury.

"Is that a challenge?", Commander Zhao mocks while standing up to his full height.

Prince Zuko nods. "An Agni Kai. At sunset."

"Very well", Commander Zhao chuckles. "It's a shame your father won't be here to witness it. Your uncle will have to do." He leaves the tent still chuckling. Tarkin, the darkest part of Obi-Wan's mind snarls again. Definitely Tarkin.

As soon as they are alone again, Iroh steps to Prince Zuko. Obi-Wan can feel him itching to put a hand on the prince's shoulder but given what he heard just now and what he can guess, Obi-Wan isn't surprised that Iroh doesn't do it. "Prince Zuko, that was not prudent", he chides but his tone is gentle. "Have you forgotten what happened last time you duelled a master?"

"I'll never forget", Prince Zuko replies darkly.

No, Obi-Wan doesn't like the implications and the almost spoken words that hang in the air. He doesn't like them at all.

"I have questions", he announces. "A lot of them, actually, but I think I'd rather ask them in a more private location. Just one, though, for now. What is an Agni Kai?"

"It's a firebending duel", Iroh explains. "Traditionally they are considered honour duels when there is no other way left to resolve a dispute and they are fought at sunset until first burn."

Obi-Wan looks at the prominent burn scar spread over Prince Zuko's face. "Ah", he says. "And it is considered fair in an honour duel for a master to duel a youngling?" Among the Jedi it wasn't unusual for a Master to duel a Knight or a Padawan or even a youngling but not until first injury?

He doesn't hear their answer because suddenly there's a pull at his form, his whole being and the tent is overlayed with the image of a rather different, desolate tent within a storm.

It is dark and then it is not.

Obi-Wan is no longer in Zhao's tent with Prince Zuko and Iroh. Instead he's in the desolate tent within a storm. Upon further inspection it's a ruin with a roof made from cloth and the storm is within the ruin not the other way around. The Force confirms his suspicion that the Avatar is in the centre of the storm.

Just like that he is thrown backwards as though the storm is a massive Force push. There's a yelp to his side and he recognizes the Water Tribe boy. Then they both end up in a wall. Literally, in Obi-Wan's case.

"What are you doing here?", the boy asks him. At least that's what Obi-Wan reads off his lips.

"I don't know", he mouths back as he fights his way out of the wall. Since the storm is some Force thing he can push it back with the Force. It's hard but possible and it beats seeing himself stuck in a wall again. It makes him queasy.

That's how the Water Tribe girl finds them. "What happened?", she shouts over the raging storm. "What are you doing here?"

Obi-Wan shrugs. He's a little busy now so he doesn't want to divide his attention any more than he already does.

The Water Tribe children cower down next to each other behind a former wall reduced to rubble. "So here's what happened", he hears the boy speak. " We chased the lemur, came into this ruin, then Aang saw the firebenders", Obi-Wan spares a glance to the side the Water Tribe boy points to. Skeletons in armour. It looks different than the Fire Nation armour he's seen so far but he's well aware of how fast armour and upgrades can change during a war. The colours, red and black, certainly look Fire Nation to his knowledge, "and then he noticed a dead airbender sitting there. It happened so fast and I was kinda worried about Aang but I think it was Monk Gyatso."

The girl sharply draws in her breath. "This must be his Avatar spirit then. He must have triggered it." Obi-Wan can feel her Force presence harden with resolve. "I'm going to try and calm him down."

"I'll keep you protected from the storm", Obi-Wan tells her as he reaches deeper into the separated Force of this world. It was easier to keep the ocean from crushing down on Kamino but that could also be because he hadn't been alone there. "But be fast." With the Force he grabs currents of the storm and changes their direction to whirl around the Water Tribe girl as a sort of protective bubble.

It works well enough until the Avatar's storm grows even fiercer. Obi-Wan thinks that he would be sweating out his own body weight now if he weren't a ghost. The way it is now he can just feel his mental barriers falling one by one.

First to go is the one that keeps him from being transparent.

Next the one that keeps in the blue glow. He's pretty sure that his form is also fading out into the Force but he's too preoccupied to check.

Next the one that keeps him from being flooded by other's emotions. He gasps as he breathes through the onslaught of grief-rage-rage-kill-rage-fury from the Avatar and the fear-help-anger-grief-fear from the children.

The next two shields just crumble beneath that and still Obi-Wan stands against the storm. He does his best to ignore the loudly projected thoughts from the children and the cacophony of voices from the Avatar.

Obi-Wan isn't sure if his last shields, those that keep his own emotions and thoughts from leaking out, hold. He just keeps the wind spinning around the Water Tribe girl and around himself and the boy.

Then it recedes.

"Please don't ever do that again", he breathes. And keels over.

Apparently Qui-Gon failed to mention that even Force ghosts can fall unconscious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, where do I start?  
> Ah, yes, the OC names are partially bullshitted since AtlA doesn't seem to really follow any asian naming tradition I know of (but I'd love to be corrected and educated here). I tried to make up some names but since fake-naming not exactly chinese characters is hard, I took the rest of the names from "Legend of Zhen Huan", a history drama that I still haven't finished watching in the full version but it's kinda a guilty pleasure for knitting? Of course, in the show the characters have full names but AtlA characters don't really seem to do the family name thing and courtesy names and all... yeah. So. Zhen, Huan, Jingxi and Liu come from there although they aren't like the characters they were named for.  
> I headcanon Iroh to run a strict training regimen despite all the easy-going attitude. Like, if you train then you're training and you better work hard at it. Seems to be a Fire Nation royal family thing to be honest. The soldiers on board just get swept up in it.  
> As for the ginseng reference... erm... supposedly one of ginseng's uses in traditional medicine is to help with potency. So Iroh went for a really low blow there.  
> Also, when Obi-Wan lists those particularly stupid actions of Anakin, he kinda glosses over the fact that he can do just as ... little thought through things without needing Anakin. After all, it was Obi-Wan who fell into the gundark nest^^  
> Ah, right, yes. And we got a bit of a hint at Aang's and Obi-Wan's connection.  
> Also, Qui-Gon didn't fail to mention that. It's just that Obi-Wan's not a Force ghost in the way he would be in the Star Wars universe. Sadly, he doesn't know and I can't tell him and yeah.
> 
> Next chapter: Southern Air Temple Addendum. Lots of talking, learning about the Air Nomad genocide, walking a temple that's a mausoleum now, Prince Zuko running his mouth and Obi-Wan just snapping for a moment.  
> At least that's the plan but characters rarely listen to my plans... *sigh*


	5. The Southern Air Temple Addendum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theoretically, I could have had this chapter done yesterday evening but there was real life and the kitties were making trouble so that I couldn't exactly concentrate. Anyway, Southern Air Temple Addendum, here we go.  
> So... erm. Warning for Air Nomad genocide and Jedi genocide? A bit of trauma responses but, if you're familiar with it, not as detailed as in the Paradoxaverse (where I'm writing a time travel Obi-Wan). Oh yeah. And skeletons, adult and not-adult ones.

### Chapter 5 – The Southern Air Temple Addendum

He just wakes up which is not how it usually happens. It's a sad fact that Obi-Wan is that experienced enough with falling unconscious that he can tell how he usually wakes up. Usually, he needs a moment to find back to himself, readjust his shielding and remember what happened last. This time he's not there one moment, and the next he is there.

Obi-Wan sits up and looks around. He's still in a ruin albeit a different one, no skeletons here. The Water Tribe boy is with him but his senses tell him that the other two children aren't far off.

"Hey, you're awake again!", the boy exclaims. "Ben was it, right?

"That's me, yes." The Water Tribe girl and the Avatar arrive. Aang he had been called, right? Something like that at least. "So, can you tell me where I am?"

The girl laughs. "That's what you asked at our village as well."

Obi-Wan looks to the side while clearing his throat. "I did, didn't I?"

"Yes, and we kinda talked to gran-gran after you were taken prisoner?", the Water Tribe boy continues. "And she said that you're not a spirit, so we talked about it on the way here and decided that you're not a spirit."

They all look at him expectantly. Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. "So?"

"So we're sorry for not telling you our names before?" The boy grinned sheepishly. "I'm Sokka."

"I'm his sister. Katara", the girl introduced herself.

"And I'm Aang."

"Great." Obi-Wan rises to his feet. "Please don't use your powers like that again. At least not with others in the vicinity who can't protect themselves."

"Yeah..." Aang scratches the back of his neck. "Hey! Is that why you're suddenly here? To protect us?"

That... makes a certain sense, Obi-Wan thinks. "I'm not sure. I didn't intend to be here. One moment I was talking to Prince Zuko and Iroh and the next I was here."

"Oh, I know what happened. I know it!" Sokka gesticulated happily. "See, Aang found Monk Gyatsa and got angry and that triggered his Avatar state and that's when you flickered right into existence there."

Obi-Wan strokes his beard. "That would fit since I am connected to Aang somehow." At their questioning looks, he adds: "He's the only person so far that I can touch instead of ghosting through them." Demonstratively he put his hand on Aang's shoulder. Like last time he immediately stops being transparent. Unlike last time he also suddenly feels gravity again. With an almost silent "umph" he lands on the ground above which he has been floating until then. "That's new", he remarks. He can feel the ground beneath his feet again. Oh, Force, he's missed this.

Sokka pokes him sceptically. His finger meets Obi-Wan's form. "Hmmm. This is odd."

"You tell me." He corrects his tunics – and halts when he turns ghostly again. Obi-Wan frowns. On a hunch he puts his hand back on Aang's shoulder and immediately he has his body back. "This is just cruel." The Force guided him to Prince Zuko where he is nothing but a ghost and now he's been pulled away from Prince Zuko and finds out that in company of the Avatar he's... gradually coming back to life? And the Force sings its approval but not in the way it did on the ship. It sings its approval but it's also calling him away.

"What is cruel?", Aang asks. The question also echoes in Katara's Force presence.

Obi-Wan sits down as well as he can without keeping contact with Aang. It's a bit strange to suddenly freely touch people again after nineteen years of exile and death. "I've followed the Force to Prince Zuko-"

"You were forced?", Katara flares up.

"I knew you weren't with them willingly!", Sokka falls in with her.

Obi-Wan clears his throat. "You misunderstand. I wasn't forced. It's..." This is hard. "The Force is a kind of energy field that binds all living things together", he repeats the explanation he gave Prince Zuko and Iroh already. "We Jedi – that is the name of my culture, my people – can sense the Force and its will and follow where it guides us."

"So like my people, the Air Nomads I mean, would follow the winds?", Aang asks. There is such a bright spark of hope surrounding him, although Obi-Wan doesn't know what he hopes for.

He shrugs. "I guess it's similar? I'm sorry, I don't know anything about Air Nomad culture. Now enough about me and back to my question? Where are we?"

"This is the Southern Air Temple!", Aang announces proudly. "I used to live here before I ended up in that iceberg and while I was there..."

"The Fire Nation attacked all the Air Temples", Katara finishes for him. "And then they hunted down all the other Air Nomads."

Obi-Wan remembers red and black armour in that ruin. Skeletons upon skeletons. The memory is quickly replaced by a different temple – the Temple, the Jedi-Temple – and different soldiers – clones and more clones in their signature white armour. And amidst all that, strewn about on red carpets and between archive shelves, Jedi. Dead. Every single one of them dead. He remembers the shock, the confusion – _who? who could have done this?_ – the helpless anger and the nausea from feeling the death throes of all those Jedi in their former home turned mausoleum. The grief that had threatened to drown him.

"That's something we have in common then", Obi-Wan finally speaks again and his voice quivers only a little. "Most Jedi lived in the Temple on Coruscant. I... went back there. Once." _There's something I must know._ "I had to confirm what had happened while I was... I had to know who had done it." _If into the security recordings you go, only pain will you find._ "It did not end well." Obi-Wan inhales, exhales, inhales again. "I need to look around. I... I need to know. If it's really the Force's will for me to accompany Prince Zuko, I need to know."

He walks numbly through the ruins. Obi-Wan is pretty sure that he passes through rubble on the floor and into pillars more than once but he doesn't really notice.

It's been a hundred years, he thinks. It's different than the Temple where he arrived just days after... just after. The smell of smoke and singed robes has long faded, the corpses are faceless skeletons, sometimes missing a head or other bones completely where scavenging animals must have taken a pick. Obi-Wan tries not to look at the too small skeletons buried beneath others. If this were the Jedi Temple, he could tell himself that that too small femur belongs to a small species. Chadra-fan maybe. In this world, without the multitude of sentient species he knows in the galaxy, he cannot.

"Not even the younglings survived", he mouths and feels sick all over again.

The only armours he sees belong to the Fire Nation. The only weapons he sees belong to the Fire Nation. Most skeletons he sees... do not.

In some rooms there are Fire Nation skeletons piled up, centred around single skeletons from what must have been Air Nomads. Everywhere else it's just Air Nomads and more Air Nomads... Obi-Wan tries to reconstruct what must have happened and can only come to the conclusion that most of those who were killed here, did not fight.

He tightens his mental shields. In the Temple not even that had helped to escape the tears and death echoes in the Force but the Force is different here and it's been longer ago. Still, he doesn't want them to slip in the midst of this massacre. There's no different word for it.

When he returns to the children, they are sitting around a small, big-eared, pale-furred creature with a ringed tail. They're sharing some fruit with it and are sitting close to each other. Obi-Wan recognizes it as a form of comfort. As younglings he had been close like that with his friends and family as well.

They look at him and he shakes his head. He doesn't want to talk about it. "The Force is still willing for me to go back", he says instead.

"What?", Katara exclaims. "Despite- despite all that, you're going back because some Force demands it?"

Obi-Wan shrugs. "I'm a Jedi. Following where the Force guides me is what I am." He doubts that they understand that. Even people from his world, non-Jedi from his world, have trouble understanding. "I cannot walk from the Force any less than I can walk away from myself. I'm not sure there are words in any language I know to explain it."

"Guys", Sokka interrupts them with a deep frown. "I just remembered something."

"What, Sokka?" That, Obi-Wan has been told, is a typical sibling interaction.

"Remember when I said that Ben just flickered into existence here? Well, for a moment, I think I could see where he was before. I mean. Maybe? It looked like a red tent."

"That's where I was, yes." He has a bad feeling about this.

"So, if I could see where you were and you said that you were with the angry jerk prince...", Sokka tries to phrase his thought correctly, "wouldn't they have been able to see where you were going?"

"That is highly likely", he confirms. Such things never only work one way.

"Aang, how many places have architecture like this?"

Aang smiles weakly. "The other three air temples?"

"Fierfek", Obi-Wan quietly curses. He reaches out into the Force for the presences of Prince Zuko and Iroh and he can make them out not too far from here. Not within reach but certainly too close for comfort. "You should leave."

"Won't you come with us?", Aang asks hopefully. He doesn't want to be alone in being the last, Obi-Wan thinks. "You could teach me more about this Force?"

He can understand Aang very well. Kriff, the first years on Tatooine he would have given his legs to be in the company of Jedi again. "No", is still his answer. "I feel that there are still things I need to do in Prince Zuko's company."

Obi-Wan hasn't bothered to climb down the mountain where the Southern Air Temple is situated. He's a ghost. He can float. And the sooner he leaves that place behind, the better. It's an uncomfortable feeling to just drop such a long distance without even feeling the wind rushing by. He also has to use the Force to push against the ground so as to not just drop further and into it. That would have been... he's not sure if uncomfortable is the right word.

Now he's waiting at the beach for Prince Zuko and Iroh to arrive in a small skiff while the ship has anchored a bit off shore where the water is deep enough.

"Was the Avatar here?", are the first words out of Prince Zuko's mouth.

Obi-Wan gives him one of those looks he usually reserved for Anakin doing his best to get into trouble. "Up at the temple but he's gone now."

"Where did he go?"

"What is this? An interrogation?" Obi-Wan lets his disapproval roll off of every syllable.

Iroh smiles gently while cutting off Prince Zuko's angry reply. "Of course not. We were only in a bit of trouble with Commander Zhao because you suddenly vanished from the tent and Prince Zuko now wants to make up for lost time."

Ah, that. He's almost forgotten it over what he saw at the air temple. "Naturally, Iroh", Obi-Wan inclines his head. "And to answer your question, Prince Zuko, they took their sky bison in that direction." He points where he has seen the sky bison disappear behind clouds. Fascinating animal, really. It should not be able to fly in an atmosphere like this. "Now, before we leave, answer me a question of mine. You've been hunting the Avatar for a while, haven't you? And you knew or at least strongly suspected that he's one of the Air Nomads... so, have you been up there? In the temple?"

"Of course I was", Prince Zuko says indignantly. "The air temples were the first places where I looked for the Avatar."

"Then you saw them?", Obi-Wan questions further. He's surprised how cold his voice sounds but he can't help it. Maybe he could have been the perfect negotiator before but not after Order 66, not after he walked the halls of his home where every part of the Force tore itself to shreds in pain. Not here. "Did you see the bones?"

Prince Zuko evades his gaze and that's answer enough even before he presses out a "yes".

"I've been told before by the Southern Water Tribe that the Air Nomads were slaughtered by the Fire Nation", Obi-Wan continues. He's trembling with anger, something he hasn't felt since Qui-Gon was killed in front of his eyes. "I didn't want to presume because I know that history has as many sides as there are people recounting it and the Southern Water Tribe has reason enough to paint the Fire Nation in a bad light... now I know that they didn't. That was a massacre there. Tell me. Why?"

Prince Zuko doesn't look at him as he answers. "Fire Lord Sozin knew that the Avatar-"

"-was an Air Nomad? The Fire Nation committed genocide over one child which could potentially stop your progress?", Obi-Wan cut him short. "Is that really the Fire Nation's justification?"

"The Air Nomads attacked Fire Nation islands! Their airbenders sucked the breath from the islanders' lungs or tossed them high into the air and let them fall." Prince Zuko clenches his fists. "They thought that with the Avatar they could subdue our nation into their depraved ways."

Iroh flinches. Obi-Wan tries not to. So much venom.

"Then why", he asks once he finds his voice again, "if those airbenders were so deadly, were almost all skeletons up there Air Nomads? And why were there so many bones too small for an adult, even too small for a teen, for someone who could fight?"

This time it is Prince Zuko who flinches and when he answers it sounds more like a deeply ingrained phrase than conviction. "It was necessary." He looks at the temple. "They were already being raised into that culture and in time they would have grown-"

_"-up to be enemies of the Empire."_

"Stop", Obi-Wan grinds out. "Not one more word." He can feel the prince's confusion, the half formed fragments of questions and sentences while another part of his mind still remains in that holo conference broadcast of one of the Emperor's spokespersons who had just answered why all Jedi even the youngest initiates had been killed.

"I don't understand", is what Prince Zuko settles on.

"Because I will do something I'll regret if you keep spouting those", Obi-Wan scoffs, "justifications. I've seen genocide before. I've _lived_ through my own people's genocide, Prince Zuko, so let me tell you this. It's never necessary or whatever justifications you are taught."

The prince turns away so that Obi-Wan cannot see his face but he can easily feel his inner turmoil. "Let's get back to the ship before the Avatar's trail goes cold", he orders.

"Very well, Prince Zuko", Iroh agrees. "We should leave."

Obi-Wan still has so many questions but right now he needs to release his anger into the Force, meditate and calm down. And stow away all those painful memories that the Southern Air Temple has dredged up.

"But it has to be", Prince Zuko mutters to himself and Obi-Wan pointedly ignores it. "It just has to be."

Back on the ship Prince Zuko makes for Lieutenant Jee and Helmsman Zhen, probably to plot their course. Obi-Wan recognizes the soldiers Tao and Liu sparring while Jingxi and who he thinks is the cook Lee are sitting around a round board. Huan is throwing in casual remarks and probably helpful advice since Jingxi keeps shushing her.

"I didn't get to ask those questions in Commander Zhao's tent", Obi-Wan turns to Iroh. "And I know that it's not your story to tell, but... what Commander Zhao implied, is it true?"

Iroh heaves a sigh as deep as the ocean they travel on. "That depends on what you think that Commander Zhao implied, does it not? It is true that I am retired and that Prince Zuko is banished. Everything else is, as you have already guessed, not for me to tell."

"Ha!", Jingxi exclaims in the background. "Beat you again."

"Very good, Jingxi", Iroh comments as he watches the board. "Have you considered my offer lately?"

The soldier blushes before she answers. "I don't think a game of Pai Sho with me would provide you with any entertainment. I'm not that good yet."

"It's a game of strategy?", Obi-Wan asks, taking in the different pieces and areas. It looks more complex than dejarik and like less of a gamble than sabacc. "I've never played Pai Sho before but I was considered pretty good at strategy. Why don't you teach me?"

"I'd be honoured to. Lee, Jingxi, would you mind if we commandeered the table?"

Both get up. "Be my guest", Lee, the cook, says. "I've got meals to prepare now anyway."

"Now Ben, Pai Sho is a game of tradition and, as you said, strategy. It hones the mind and, occasionally offers a welcome distraction from long times at sea." Iroh winks good-naturedly as he sits down at the board.

Obi-Wan returns the gesture with a grin. "Why do I get the feeling that you are rather fond of this welcome distraction and enjoy it often and intensely?" He takes place opposite of Iroh.

"It would be a lie to say that I am not fond of Pai Sho." Iroh laughs. "Let me explain the board and then we'll move on to the different pieces."

"General Iroh?", Jingxi, who is still lingering, speaks up, "may I stay and observe? And, I mean, someone will have to, er, maybe help move the tiles?"

Iroh and Obi-Wan look at each other. Why would they need help moving the tiles? Obi-Wan follows Jingxi's look to see that he has once again lost the ground. "Sithspit. This is getting older than I am." A little readjustment later he no longer is stuck in the deck. "I admit that I wouldn't mind a little help with the game although I am perfectly capable of moving the tiles myself." He gently picks up a tile with the Force and levitates it onto the board. Still, what he can see from the board is a complexity of rules which will be challenging until he internalizes them.

"Very well. As you can see, the board is divided into twelve sections, namely the Mountains", he points to the darker areas that build the "corners" of the round board, "the cities", the areas which lie between the mountains, "and the desert", which is four triangles in the centre of the board. "You start with your tiles in the city in a symmetrical flame formation." He puts tiles on the board and beckons Obi-Wan to do the same. "This is the traditional opening in the Fire Nation and has since been accepted as the default opening formation. There are still parts of the Earth Kingdom where the opening is instead called 'The Cave' and I once played with a Water Tribe master who introduced me to 'The Iceberg'." Obi-Wan is grateful that Iroh does not mention the Air Nomads. "Of course there's big regional differences in certain rules but I think it best if we start with Fire Nation rules."

Obi-Wan nods while he levitates the tiles that Jingxi finds in their bowl onto the board. "I thought the Fire Nation was at war with the rest of the world for the last hundred years. How did you get someone from the Water Tribe to play with you?"

Iroh stops his movements, then proceeds as though nothing happened. "When I retired, I decided to travel the world as just Iroh, not General Iroh of the Fire Nation's royal family. I've learnt many things on my journey and one of them is different Pai Sho traditions."

He has felt a slight rise of old pain and grief in Iroh at those words. Obi-Wan tries to ignore it. It's rude to answer to people's subconscious, especially with people who can't shield themselves like Jedi. "So when one of the soldiers said that they all have been with you before... the before he meant was before your retirement?"

Jingxi narrows her eyes. "Who blabbed?"

"Stay calm, Jingxi", Iroh settles her down again. "Yes, all these people have been under my command before I retired and I asked them to join Prince Zuko and me here because of their great loyalty. I have not been disappointed once."

Obi-Wan remembers Cody and the 212th, his favourite part of the 7th Sky Corps. He remembers Rex and the 501st who followed Anakin. He remembers Alpha-17. Oh, their soldiers had been loyal. He still can't understand why they turned on them. Theoretically, he knows the how and why and all the dreadful details of their conditioning on Kamino but he can't understand it. "It's good to know who has your back", he quotes an old Mandalorian proverb. Approximately. The language rarely lends itself to direct translations. "It's better to always check", he adds with a touch of bitterness. A good amount of those people he had trusted to have his back, have tried to kill him.

"I sense a story there", Iroh remarks casually. "But maybe it is a story for another day."

There are still death echoes in his mind. He does not want to stir up more old wounds now. "Indeed it is. Please explain to me what all these tiles are called and how they move. I'd rather think of more pleasant things now."

Iroh hums in agreement. "The most important piece on the board is the White Lotus tile. It can only move but it is the one piece that lose or win the game. There is something called the White Lotus gambit-"

"General Iroh, don't you want to start with the basics?", Jingxi teases.

Obi-Wan is far too willing to let the truly astonishing amount of rules and special rules for this and that tile distract himself for the moment. It's not as good as meditation but good enough for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, that's it for now^^ Obi-Wan finally snapped and Zuko has a little identity crisis or, well, the beginnings of one. When will Obi-Wan ask about all those things Zhao shouted? Not sure yet. After all, he understands very well when someone doesn't want to talk about hurtful memories.
> 
> Gran-gran Kanna rules the South Pole btw. You can't change my mind.  
> Also, yep, Obi-Wan's teleport is connected to the Avatar State. At least for the moment. I mean, I'd like all of them to figure it all out but there's still things that gotta happen, so for now they (and you, my readers) are stuck with making observations and thinking up theories^^ About the touching Aang and becoming material again thing... I'll elaborate more on that at the Winter Solstice.  
> Oh yeah, the thing with "I'm a Jedi. Following where the Force guides me is what I am" is mostly headcanon. I mean, I think it is heavily implied in canon (whichever Star Wars canon we're looking at btw) but it's not explicitly said iirc.  
> I didn't exactly have the possibility to write it here but what happened at Zhao's tent was mostly him going inside to check that Zuko hasn't fled from the Agni Kai only to see that the foreigner was gone. Then he yelled at his soldiers, at Zuko and Iroh. Then he checked for cuts or anything out of place at the tent walls. Found no footprints or anything and is now slowly buying into the whole "that man's a spirit" thing. Then he yelled some more and then there was the Agni Kai.  
> As for the last part with Iroh (and finally Pai Sho!)... Obi-Wan isn't only a Jedi-Master but, at least in my headcanon, also a Master of Compartmentalization. So he's now very busy shoving all those things he can't deal with right now into the darkest, most locked away corner of his mind. Not the healthiest coping mechanism but there isn't exactly therapy for Jedi in exile on a desert planet nor for Force ghosts... I'm not sure that the world of AtlA has an actual concept of psychotherapy... on the other hand... there was "I try to be a therapist"-Sokka in that episode before the day of black sun. That would imply that there actually are therapists and that Sokka even has seen them.... maybe it's a Southern Water Tribe thing? like, not our world kind of therapy but something similar? Force knows, they could use it. Actually, all of them could use it.  
> Next up: Warriors of Kyoshi. Will take some more time to write so I doubt I'll manage an update tomorrow, especially cause there's things to do in real life... ah well. At least I can skip over the King of Omashu cause Zuko doesn't appear there and Aang doesn't go into the Avatar State.


	6. The Warriors of Kyoshi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok, so, remember when I said that I don't want my chapters longer than 5k? yeah, then this chapter came around where a lot of stuff happened (and the warriors of kyoshi don't even appear but are talked about) and it all happened in the span of the episode and since I wanted to keep everything that happens within an episode (and not as a prelude or addendum) within one chapter, this thing happened.  
> Also, since Obi-Wan, Iroh and Zuko all kinda try to unload all their emotional baggage and the trauma stuff is (gonna be) sometimes talked about in detail, I decided to up the rating and somehow the rating system doesn't have a step between T (which is like 13, right?) and M (which is 17, right?), I rather went with M.
> 
> Warnings for sadness, talking about traumatizing stuff (and not talking but hinting at child abuse in case of Zuko), wounds and wound healing, insomnia and old men talking a lot. Like. A lot.

### Chapter 6 – The Warriors of Kyoshi

"Are you sure that you want to make that move with the dragon?"

Obi-Wan checks the board again. He's still learning and it will take some time until he really knows how to play Pai Sho but he is pretty sure that he wants to make that move with the dragon tile. "Are you trying to keep me from taking your chariot or is this an actually helpful question?"

Iroh winks. "It is certainly helpful although it is still to be decided whom it will help."

Instinctively, Obi-Wan sends him a huff of annoyance, then remembers that Iroh can't sense the Force and squints his eyes. "Your turn", he says after having captured the chariot tile.

"Hmmm", Iroh studies the board. "It's an interesting gambit." They both know that Obi-Wan is still not learnt enough in the game to be thinking about actual gambits. "I've noticed something when we were with Commander Zhao", he says while still thinking about moves and gambits. Obi-Wan can hear him strategize when he doesn't consciously suppress that ability of his. It does make learning the game easier, though.

"So did I", Obi-Wan answers carefully, "but I think we're talking about different things. You go first."

Iroh has his Avatar tile move the rock tile two spaces to the left from Obi-Wan's point of view. It is now blocking his chariot from reaching Iroh's white lotus tile. If he hadn't moved the dragon towards the chariot... he'll keep it in mind for the next round. "You did not react to your name or rather the name you told us was yours."

"So you figured that out." Obi-Wan frowns. Iroh's white lotus tile only needs a few more turns to reach the centre and win him the game whereas Obi-Wan is low on all tiles within the desert. He reaches with the Force into his bowl to rather place a new tile of his faction on the board instead of moving one he already has. The rock tile. Not helpful at all in this case. "I've been called Ben in exile while I was hiding from the Empire but I was raised as Obi-Wan." He shrugs. "The name Obi-Wan Kenobi has become far too recognizable where I am from and there is a sizeable bounty on my head, so I deemed it safer to introduce myself as just Ben when I didn't know where I was." He places the rock next to his moon tile.

"Is that the kind of name they have beyond the Western Isles?", Iroh asks curiously. "I must admit that words like Jedi and Obi-Wan Kenobi or even Ben sound strange to my ears." Iroh moves his Wheel back into his city which allows him to let his rock take Obi-Wan's chariot. He'd forgotten about the Wheel. He curses silently.

His gaze goes to the sky where night creeps up to extinguish the last rays of this world's sun. Like on Tatooine, it's easy to see the stars here. Coruscant had always been too bright even during the night cycle to see anything up there but this world does not have neon lights, holographic advertising and speeder lanes far above the clouds. "We both know that I'm not from beyond the Western Isles", he admits then as he senses that no one is in the vicinity to hear. "It's somewhere out there, I think. The galaxy, my home. Obi-Wan Kenobi is not a strange name for someone raised in the Jedi-Temple. You can't really have strange names with people from more cultures than anyone could ever possibly catalogue. Some of my friends had names that couldn't even be properly pronounced by human vocal chords." Shyriiwook is not an easy language to learn for someone who's not a Wookiee.

"Out there?", Iroh echoes. He looks up to the stars. "You lived on a star?"

Obi-Wan shakes his head and corrects: "Not on a star. It's... all those stars out there are part of a galaxy, a... cluster of stars in a way. Now imagine that every star out there is orbited by a planet or more and every planet is a world like this." He's stretching the truth a bit here because most planets are not like this one. Kamino with its storm driven seas, Utapau with its sinkhole cities, Mustafar with its rivers of lava, Naboo with its planet core of water and plasma... No, most worlds he has visited are not like this one and that doesn't even take the strangeness of the Force and the bending into account. "I was raised in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. The whole planet is one big city. Well, most parts of that city are downtrodden and not safe for anyone but it is one city. It was also the centre of the Galactic Republic."

"I have trouble imagining that." Iroh is playing with a tile in his hands, the game forgotten for the moment.

"So would I if I hadn't been born into it", Obi-Wan admits with a chuckle. "I never thought it strange because it's what I knew. There's thousands of inhabited star systems in the galaxy, millions of cultures and species and I saw a lot of them when I was on missions. We, and this may sound strange to you, used to travel from one star system to another with starships. They aren't much like your ships here, except for the metal hull, I guess." The sun is gone now and the starry night sky stretches above them. "When I was in exile, I lived on Tatooine. It's a desert planet. They say that a long forgotten war left it barren and now there's only sand and more sand beneath an empty sky. It's not easy to live there. Not impossible with the right technology but not easy." He shuts up when he feels one of the soldiers approaching that cannot bend fire.

Huan appears just a moment later. "General Iroh, we haven't seen any sign of the Avatar", she reports. "Lieutenant Jee asks if we should keep our current course."

Obi-Wan checks with the Force in which direction he can feel Aang. They aren't close enough to pinpoint Aang and the group directly but as the Avatar Aang shines bright enough to give Obi-Wan a general idea. Their current course leads them further away which is a relief. After all, Prince Zuko threatened to throw Obi-Wan overboard if he helped the Avatar again and he probably will if Prince Zuko fights him again. He's just not ready to leave. Yet. There are things he still wants to understand.

"How are our provisions?"

Obi-Wan is shocked to find that he has forgotten about the importance of provisions in the short time since he's become a Force ghost. Not needing to eat or sleep or breathe is making it hard to remember such things.

Huan shrugs. "We can make do if we don't mind eating bland congee for weeks."

Obi-Wan thinks that he could deal with bland congee. He's lived off energy rations often enough and those things have no taste at all. Thankfully, he doesn't have to and wouldn't have to even if he wasn't a ghost because Iroh is pulling a face that conveys openly what he thinks of bland congee. "Tell Lieutenant Jee to make for the next port. We have to restock again", he orders, then, with a look to Obi-Wan adds: "I'm sorry but we will have to postpone our game for the moment, Ben." There's a special emphasis on Obi-Wan's name and he appreciates the thought. So Iroh will not tell anyone about what he just heard. "I will tell Prince Zuko of this development."

Obi-Wan has cleaned up the board when Iroh returns. "We got distracted anyway", he explains, "and I think you would rather hear some more answers instead of winning the tenth game in a row."

"I am tempted", Iroh agrees, a yawn stretching his mouth wide. "Forgive an old firebender. We tend to rise with the sun and go to sleep with it as well."

He's been wondering about that. Of course, on a ship there are always some to do the night shift but the night shift is usually done by the non-benders, Helmsman Zhen taking over command for Lieutenant Jee and Huan or Tao taking over for Liu, Jingxi and Caon. There are exceptions but he can always feel that the firebenders are more exhausted at night, their thoughts becoming muddled. So that's why.

"An answer for an answer then?", he confirms. "You may ask first."

"Very well." Iroh settles down at his place at the Pai Sho board even though they aren't playing now. "Ah, Liu, before you turn in, can you bring an old man a pot of tea?", he asks the soldier passing by.

"Spiced tea?"

"That would be appreciated. Didn't you say that your mother had a very special way of brewing spiced tea? I'd like to try that tonight."

Liu eyes Iroh suspiciously. There are a lot of words unspoken that would probably be spoken if Obi-Wan wasn't present. "I'll be back in a few."

"Where were we? Ah. An answer for an answer was it, am I correct? Then, if you do not mind me asking, why were you exiled?"

Obi-Wan raises one eyebrow. "I thought that much was obvious. The Empire killed my people. They marched into our home and killed everyone they could find. Those, who were lucky and survived, were too few to stand against the Imperial Army, the Emperor and his... right hand executioner. So we went into exile, stayed hidden, gathered our forces and waited for the right time." He glosses over the details, over all those painful truths that he doesn't want to face and he knows that Iroh knows this. "Why did you retire?"

Iroh chuckles. "I should have expected this question and still it is painful to hear." Liu returns and wordlessly hands Iroh a pot of tea and a cup. There's worry around him. "I was a different man then." Liu bows and leaves as Iroh fills his cup. Wafts of steam rise into the night. "It was seven years ago when I was still General Iroh, Crown Prince of the Fire Nation, that I decided to act upon what I thought was my fate. To conquer Ba Sing Se." Obi-Wan already knows his next question now. Why is Iroh not the Fire Lord now? "The city is aptly named. The impenetrable wall. Six hundred days we laid siege to Ba Sing Se and only managed to break through its outermost wall. Then... my son died." He takes a sip of his tea, then another. "I lost Lu Ten at the frontlines and... I gave up. I gave up the Siege and retired as a general."

"Others would have chosen revenge." Obi-Wan knows that he would have been tempted. Had been tempted. He had even chosen anger and revenge before when Maul had killed Qui-Gon in front of his eyes.

"I wanted to. Agni knows I wanted to hurt them for killing my son." Iroh empties his cup. He immediately refills it. This is not a tea to enjoy, Obi-Wan recognizes, it's just habit. Just like he did in the Clone Wars.

"Revenge only fuels more revenge. It's good that you didn't." He learnt that the hard way thanks to Darth Maul. "I killed for revenge. Once." He doesn't need to mention that Maul survived that first attempt due to the powers of the dark side and his sheer, unbroken hate. "It left a mark, a scar if you will, that will never heal properly." It's not the most prominent feature in his Force presence but Obi-Wan knows that it's there. On particularly bad days he pokes at it.

Iroh inhales the tea's steam. "Who was it? That you avenged?"

He looks out to the sea where the waves are just endlessly crashing against the ship. It's so different from Tatooine with its endless desert but also so similar. "My Master. He taught me to be a Jedi since I was thirteen years old and when I was close to my Trials of Knighthood, we were sent on a diplomatic mission to resolve a trade embargo peacefully. It didn't work out, the Trade Federation invaded Naboo and during the following battle we faced a Sith. He was... a much better warrior than we were and held his own against the two of us. We were separated. I watched as the Sith overpowered and stabbed my Master. Then I killed him." Or thought I did, then, but I ended it later, he amends. "Why are you not the Fire Lord now? You said that you were the Crown Prince."

Iroh sighs. "I gave up the Siege on Ba Sing Se. The men were tired, I was grieving. I wrote home to my father, Fire Lord Azulon, may his spark rest in Agni, that the Siege was lost and that we were returning home as soon as the funeral rites for my son had been held. When I arrived back in Caldera with my fleet, my father was dead, my sister-in-law had vanished and my younger brother sat on the Fire Lord's throne. They said that in the night that my father passed, he decided that I had brought dishonour to the Fire Nation and was therefore unfit for the throne."

"What a coincidence", Obi-Wan comments.

"Indeed", Iroh answers, refilling his tea cup again. "But you are no stranger to betrayal either."

Obi-Wan raises one eyebrow. "Is that a question? Yes, I have been betrayed before." He wants to talk about it, he really does. After all, Iroh has no connection at all to Order 66, the Empire and the Clone Wars. He cannot tell anyone from Obi-Wan's life either. Still... "I think we can become friends, Iroh, in time, but this is a subject that I am not willing to share. Not yet. Maybe never. It's closely connected to the death of my people."

"I am honoured by your trust, Ben", Iroh smiles gently, "and I would be honoured to call you my friend in time." He yawns again. "Alas, I am an old man and need my rest."

Lie, Obi-Wan thinks. "You're not going to sleep. Force knows that I never slept when I have dredged up these kind of memories."

"Possibly."

"And then you'd rather lie restless in those closed quarters instead of having the open sky above?", Obi-Wan asks with a hint of teasing. "Stay up here and I'll tell you about the planets I've seen."

"Coruscant is... I'd like to say that it's one of a kind but it isn't. It's the city planet I know the best, though. Trillions of people from all over the galaxy live on Coruscant. The buildings are so high that they reach above the clouds and the lowest levels never see the sun... I admit that I'm glad not to have ventured there too often... It's always bustling with life like the beating heart of the Republic. And the Temple... it doesn't look great from the outside. Some grey-brown material and it's very big and bulky but on the inside... it was home."

"Bordering the Unknown Regions, there's Ilum. It's a cold planet, colder than the South Pole even, I think. But at night... oh, the air is so clear that above you can see the closest arm of the galaxy spiraling across the sky, one bright band of light and the light of the stars is reflected by the ice and snow and the crystals that grow there. And they sing in the Force. It's... well, if it weren't for the dangerous beasts that try to eat you... but it's beautiful, it really is. It may be the closest anyone who cannot feel the Force get to witnessing it."

"I think you would like the Mandalorians. Their planet is harsh, very cold in places, desert in others, but between those extremes you have wide fields and forests. They are a harsh people, too, but they grow on you." He laughs. "Satine all but adopted me at the end of our stay... then she tried to tame the Mandalorians... I admit that I didn't think she could do it but with some at least she managed. They are proud. Loyal. Honest to a fault and they put great stock in honour. You'd get along.... Or you would kill each other."  
Iroh snorts.

"There's trees on Kashyyyk that reach higher than... than the smoke coming from your ship's chimney. The forests are so dense that you can walk from one tree's crown to the next. Mostly. It's easier for Wookiees than for humans. I would have loved to spend more time there. It was... Coruscant is alive in the way that everyone is busy. Like insects in a hive but less coordinated. Everyone is always going somewhere. Kashyyyk... it's alive because it's growing. Death becomes new life becomes new death becomes new life and it grows."

"Naboo... rolling green hills and lush forests and the people there built their homes with a mix of practicality and beauty. And the lakes... there were some lakes that were mostly for the Naboo but further away from the settlements you could find the Gungans and they built their cities underwater in giant bubbles. You could walk from one area to the next and see giant fish swimming outside because they were illuminated by the orange glow of the lanterns inside."

"I can't recall anything pleasant about Kamino, I'm sorry. Most of the planet is submerged by one big ocean and therefore the weather is mostly rain and storm. On those days where it's different, it's only rain or only storm. I'm told they have about one sunny day a year. Don't fight on slippery platforms in the middle of storm and rain."

"Hm. Tatooine? It has its own beauty, I suppose. If one likes sand."

It's a good thing that a Force ghost can't become hoarse from talking too much, Obi-Wan surmises the next morning as the first rays of the sun illuminate the new day. They've talked through the night, Obi-Wan just retelling what he saw and Iroh occasionally asking questions.

Iroh gets up and stretches. His joints creak a little. "Ah, I'm growing old."

"Tell me about it." The constant lack of fresh water hadn't helped matters when he was on Tatooine.

Helmsman Zhen passes them with a wide yawn. "Good morning, General Iroh. Lieutenant Jee is at the helm now. We should reach port to restock before noon."

"Thank you, Zhen. Get some rest."

They make port shortly after noon – Iroh has won three more games of Pai Sho – due to the tides forcing them to take a detour around the island towards the harbour that's accessible for their ship at low tide. The other one can only be used by the much smaller fisher boats at this time. Lieutenant Jee has been ordered to procure any interesting tea blends he comes across as he is sent out with the money to accompany Lee on their restocking run. Tao and Liu follow them to carry groceries.

Iroh, as it turns out, intends to make the most of their stay. He's faring well for a night without sleep and little rest. Obi-Wan still accompanies him to keep an eye on him.

"It's a shame that Prince Zuko has decided to stay behind. Such a beautiful day for a walk along the docks."

Obi-Wan doesn't share the sentiment. Unlike Iroh he has to concentrate on walking on the ground and not accidentally passing through people or buildings or anything else. Unlike Iroh he's also well aware of the wary fear-don't-look-up most of the harbour residents emit into the Force. They're mostly afraid of Iroh – or rather his Fire Nation colours – and curious or wary about Obi-Wan who's so obviously foreign. If he still had the ginger hair of his youth it would be even worse. Apart from those things, though, he has to agree. It is a beautiful day. "I think he's still trying to figure out where Aang is going. His route so far... You said that Prince Zuko called him a mastermind of evasion? To me it looks more like he's lost. It certainly looks like routes that I took when I was lost."

Iroh huffs a small laugh at that. "So his name is Aang- Now would you look at that?" Iroh walks purposefully towards a small stall in front of what seems to be an old-fashioned – at least from Obi-Wan's point of view – forge. He points at a curved sword. "Didn't you say that you trained with a saber?"

That he did. Obi-Wan strokes his beard. He's a ghost but if his meetings with Aang are anything to go by, he might end up with a corporeal form sooner or later... "The saber I trained with was rather different", he says. Nearly weightless, just to name one thing in which a lightsaber varies from a metal one. "Apparently sabers in my region vary wildly from these. It had a straight blade, for example."

"So more like this jian?" He points at a straight, two-bladed sword. It's crafted beautifully for all Obi-Wan knows of traditional weapons. Rather, ceremonial weapons where he comes from.

"Closer", he acknowledges. How does he tell Iroh now that a lightsaber's blade has no edge at all because it's a beam of superheated plasma trapped in a strong energy field? Probably not at all because how does one explain this to a culture that has just discovered coal engines? "I might be able to adapt my style to a... jian you called it?" Well, he might be able to adapt _a_ style to this kind of sword. Lightsaber combat has been developed from now ceremonial swords once upon a time but the unique properties of lightsabers and their usual combat – against other lightsaber users or energy weapons – required lightsaber combat forms to adapt. He rather doubts that most of what he learned can be translated just like this to a metal sword.

"Ho! My dear master weapon-smith!", Iroh calls over the smith from the back of the forge. "How much for this beautiful jian?"

The weapon-smith is a tower of a person. Obi-Wan thinks that she could wrestle a Wookiee and he's not sure who he would bet on. If he were a betting person, that is. "For Fire Nation?", she asks. "Not for sale. That's the best steel of Earth Kingdom make." Animosity rolls off her in waves. "Now fuck off."

"Ah, but this jian is not for me", Iroh answers her with a gentle smile. "I intend to purchase it for my friend Ben who is a diplomatic envoy from beyond the Western Isles."

The weapon-smith gifts them an uninmpressed look. "Sure. And I'm the queen of Omashu."

Iroh is still smiling. "King Bumi of Omashu has always favoured a game of Pai Sho. Would you do me the honour?"

There's a peak of curiosity in the Force around the weapon-smith now. "Are you familiar with Earth Kingdom rules?"

"I favour the White Lotus gambit."

Apart from a slight widening of her eyes and a hint of shock in her Force presence, the weapon-smith doesn't react. "There's not many who still cling to the ancient ways."

"But those who do can always find a friend."

She chuckles now. "So you're Iroh, I guess. Do we actually have time for a game or do you have to leave soon? I hear the burnt prince-"

"I fear that Prince Zuko", Iroh says with emphasis on his nephew's name and title, "wants to leave as soon as possible. I would still like to purchase that sword, though."

"-the Avatar is on Kyoshi Island?", a fragment of a sentence is carried over to them by the wind.

Obi-Wan, Iroh and the weapon-smith exchange glances. "And it seems we have to cut the haggling."

"Very well, brother. Bumi trusts you and your mission, so I will trust you, too. I still don't agree with it." She takes the jian and wraps it in cloth. "Take this and go to your ship", the weapon-smith says to Obi-Wan. "Iroh and I still have to talk a bit."

Obi-Wan bows deeply as he accepts the sword. He's sure that the weapon-smith noticed the short moment where it fell before he caught it with the Force but she doesn't comment on it so he leaves.

In the evening they reach Kyoshi Island. Prince Zuko along with Tao and Caon leaves on something called komodo rhinos which remind him of reeks but smaller. Obi-Wan has been expressly forbidden from following the prince which is not that surprising since Prince Zuko has to worry about Obi-Wan interfering again.

"You know, I'm not allowed to follow him", Obi-Wan muses as he grimly watches the first straw roof go up in flames, "but his orders did not include not entering the village." More fires erupt all over the place. He can feel Prince Zuko and Aang fighting while Tao and Caon are already hurt. If these were his men, he'd probably already be out to protect them... "Too bad, that Prince Zuko will not see it like that and I don't want to aggravate his temper right now. Tao and Caon, though, could use someone to rescue them from whoever they fight out there."

"What?", Huan yells from her place on deck where she must have heard him just now. "How do you know? A spirit thing?"

"They must be fighting the warriors of Kyoshi, named after the Avatar who made this island." Iroh frowns. "What about Caon and Tao?"

Obi-Wan reaches out. Caon who as a firebender usually burns brighter in the Force than a non-bender is subdued. "Caon is unconscious and Tao..." Tao is harder to find. "He's hurt. I don't know more."

Iroh grumbles under his breath about nephews and youthful arrogance. "Tell Lieutenant Jee that he's in command of the ship for now. Jingxi is to help Shang in the engine room. I want us able to make a hasty retreat if necessary. Huan, you're with me."

They leave. There's more fire in the village. Fear and helpless anger permeate the Force even down where the ship is docked.

Katara and Sokka fly over them with their sky bison, a giant sea serpent rises from the bay and... yes, that's Aang on top of it making it spray a water hose at the village. For a moment Obi-Wan considers that Aang also has quite a few traits of Anakin but then he amends that Aang is more like Luke. Anakin was so angry all the time. He tried to hide it but he wasn't really good at it. No, Aang resembles Luke far more. Quick to do things, quick to protect what he loves.

It allows Obi-Wan some hope for this world. It lets him hope for the galaxy he left behind.

Obi-Wan watches Iroh and Prince Zuko leave while Huan stays with Tao and Caon who still hasn't regained consciousness. Huan is muttering swears while she bandages Tao's arm. "Two soldiers and the banished prince against the Avatar. What was he thinking?"

Tao notices Obi-Wan in the doorway to what must be the infirmary of the ship – a slightly bigger cabin with one cabinet of medical supplies.

"If General Iroh wasn't vouching... for... him..." Huan trails off as she, too, notices Obi-Wan. "Can I help you, Ben?"

Obi-Wan bows. "Actually, I was thinking of offering my help. I used to be able to heal where I come from... although I haven't been able to check yet if it carried over."

"Like those waterbender healers?", Tao asks curiously.

He shrugs. "I haven't met a waterbender healer yet."

Tao and Huan look at each other in a wordless exchange that Obi-Wan would have thinking Jedi if he couldn't feel that they aren't Force sensitive. "I guess I have a conveniently cut up arm from those fans." Huan moves a bit to the side and lets the bandages fall.

"Fans?", Obi-Wan echoes as he kneels down next to Huan. He knows fans from ventilation systems but he's never heard of them being used as weapons.

"Like those that you use to fan yourself cooler air in hot summers but the Kyoshi Warriors make them from metal and sharpen the ends." Huan is still fuming angrily despite her calm explanation. Her explanation helps at little, at least. Obi-Wan thinks that he saw those kinds of fans at the Galactic Opera once. "If the prince had listened to Jee, this wouldn't have happened."

Obi-Wan reaches for the Force as he examines Tao's arms. He's never been much of a healer. He could put himself into a healing trance and take care of the most necessities in the field – there rarely was a healer conveniently located at the front lines where he usually was – but it was another thing entirely to heal someone else. He searches for the damaged veins, tissue and all that belongs to a normal arm's biology. The wound has been cleaned already, he notices.

None of the cuts are too deep. Either Tao was lucky or the Kyoshi warriors aimed to incapacitate rather than maim.

Obi-Wan lets the shields that disconnect him from other people fall and channels the Force through himself into the cuts on Tao's arm. It rushes through him like an Alderaan spring flood making its way from the mountains to the sea. Obi-Wan directs it to broken cells and torn tissue, lets the Force mend what was hurt, while he guides blood and exudate out of the cut before it's closed in.

"What in Agni's name?", Tao whispers.

"That's not waterbender healing", Huan adds. "They use the water and it glows blue. I've seen it once in a border skirmish with the Northern Water Tribe."

He leans back and closes himself off again. "It's the Force. Something like bending and completely different."

"It looked like the light of Agni." Tao moves his arm experimentally. "Are you sure you're not a spirit?"

"Mostly", Obi-Wan answers. "I would keep that arm still for a day or two if I were you. These weren't deep cuts but I've never had formal healer training. I just picked up bits and pieces in the war and after."

"You were a soldier, too?" Huan looks at him sceptically.

"More of a warrior at first, later a general." He's not sure if this world has knights. Soldiers, warriors, fighters and different ranks of a usual command structure but he hasn't heard of knights yet. "That's why I think that I'm not far off in thinking that Prince Zuko hasn't earned your respect yet?"

Huan snorts. "He's a brat. If it weren't for General Iroh, we'd never even considered joining him on this fool's errand."

"Iroh can count himself lucky then, to have such loyal soldiers by his side", Obi-Wan answers diplomatically.

"Well, he's earned our respect and our loyalty unlike that pampered prince who's never seen the outside of the palace before he decided to go chasing after myths."

"I'm sure there's a reason", Tao interrupts her calmly. "General Iroh would not have called on us for no reason."

"It better be a good reason. I haven't seen my wife in almost three years." Huan gets up and stomps off angrily.

Tao shrugs in Obi-Wan's direction. "I wouldn't mind seeing my family again, too. It's not easy to get shore leave for home when your command is not allowed to enter Fire Nation waters."

Obi-Wan sits down next to Caon, still unmoving. "Have you seen what happened to him? Head wounds tend to be finicky."

"I think one of the girls hit him from behind with a club?" Tao shrugs again, then winces and scowls at his healed arm. "I was a bit distracted by the ones that attacked me."

So Obi-Wan just uses to Force to check if Caon is in danger. He doesn't want to risk accidentally hurting the soldier if there's a good chance of him waking up alone. "He should be fine when he wakes up", he decides. "Will probably have a headache like a Hutt after a spice bender."

"I won't even try to understand what that means. I'm a sick soldier now, so let us get some rest. Look for the prince or something."

There's muffled voices coming from inside Prince Zuko's quarters. Obi-Wan considers turning around.

"-in danger!", he hears Iroh.

Obi-Wan sighs. They are fighting and he should probably not pour fuel into the flame by appearing inside. On the other hand he's trained as a negotiator and he could help. Maybe. Hopefully.

He closes his eyes and slips through the door. He doesn't like seeing the darkness that envelops him for that time that he's inside an object.

"Is this a bad time?", he asks rhetorically.

"Yes!", he's yelled at from two sides.

"I've healed Tao and Caon will probably just wake up with a terrible headache. So", he sits down, "does anyone else want to risk me healing them or can we talk like civilised persons?"

Iroh and Prince Zuko exchange a look, then sit down simultaneously. The Force around them is strained with tension.

"What were you fighting about?"

"We weren't fighting", Prince Zuko grumbles.

"Could have fooled me." Obi-Wan rests his hands on his thighs. "Then let me make some educated guesses. You, Prince Zuko, did not listen to a more experienced soldier's advice and attacked an island renowned for its warriors and the Avatar with only two more soldiers, one of whom cannot bend and therefore not defend himself against the Avatar. You probably also didn't have a plan beyond wanting to capture the Avatar. You, Iroh, are sleep deprived, angry over the unnecessary danger to your soldiers and have lost your temper as Prince Zuko was his usual stubborn self and did not listen to you reprimanding him for such a foolish action. Then you both started yelling. Did I get that about right?"

"That is the gist of it, yes." Iroh sighs. "I must apologize, Prince Zuko. I exhibited shameful behaviour in raising my voice at you."

Prince Zuko blinks. "But I didn't listen to you?"

Obi-Wan coughs into his sleeve. "Usually, when one person apologizes, one does accept that apology."

"I accept your apology, Uncle?"

It sounds more like a question but it's a start, Obi-Wan thinks. "Should I guess some more about what I think the problem is?"

"If you were with Tao and Huan in the infirmary, I think that you are not guessing", Iroh responds.

"Probably not", Obi-Wan concedes. "It's okay to be worried over the soldiers under your command and I can't say that I never yelled at someone who took over command over my troops and then got them in unnecessary danger. I trusted them with my life and they earned that trust just as I earned their trust and they trusted me with their life. I listened to them when they knew better which, in the beginning, they often did." He looks at Prince Zuko now. "Trust goes both ways."

"I don't need their trust." Prince Zuko crosses his arms. Force, it's easy to forget but he's a surly, probably deeply traumatized teenager. "They just need to follow orders and show the proper respect."

"Respect is also something that needs to be earned", Obi-Wan continues. "Do you think that your uncle's troops fought with him for six hundred days in a siege with the odds against them just because those were their orders?"

"They didn't", Iroh chimes in and at just the right moment. Obi-Wan isn't sure if Prince Zuko would have listened before. "Lieutenant Jee was part of my very first command and I can tell you that he was not impressed with the crown prince that just appeared in his unit and thought he could order everyone around." Iroh laughs fondly at the memory, then immediately sobers. "Agni, I should not have lost my temper like this. The first real fight my first command saw went about as well as your skirmish on Kyoshi island. I am truly sorry, nephew."

Prince Zuko has stopped radiating anger just about when Iroh chimed in. Now his whole Force presence is one big mess of confusion. "But you were the crown prince. They owed you their respect."

"Did they?" Iroh's Force presence is now back to being completely calm, a welcome anchor for Obi-Wan. "Did those soldiers who have fought for our nation before I even saw my first fight really owe me respect? Or did I owe them?"

Obi-Wan gets up from his place. "I'm going to check on Tao and Caon again." Not that they'd need it. He can feel that they are both fine.

"I didn't intend for them to get hurt", Prince Zuko murmurs. "Will they really be fine?"

He's really just a teen, Obi-Wan thinks. A teen who has suddenly had a command thrust upon him and, as it seems, unlike Padmé, Ahsoka or basically anyone else he could list now, Prince Zuko did not learn the basics of leading people. Nor the basics of interacting with people. A curious fact since he has been the crown prince until his banishment, hasn't he? "I'm not a certified healer but I think there will be no permanent damage with Tao. For Caon I can't say. I think it's only a minor concussion but head and brain damage tend to be much worse or much better than they look." He frowns at the door and tries to will the lock to open. Metal, he thinks. All it does is twitch a little. He's beginning to dislike the limits of this world. He turns back. "I just remembered why I even came here. Did you two come out unscathed?"

"I'm fine", Iroh nods.

"Just a few bruises."

Lie, Obi-Wan thinks. "No cracked ribs from being thrown around by Aang?" He consciously uses the Avatar's name.

"Who's- that's the Avatar's name?" Prince Zuko cringes as he moves too fast.

Obi-Wan pointedly looks at him. "Just a few bruises?"

"It's none of your business."

"Very well", Obi-Wan shrugs. "I'm sure that you can defeat Aang next time while you're still healing from cracked ribs." That had usually worked to get a very stubborn, very young Obi-Wan to go into the healer's wing even though he hated it there. "I swear on my honour as a Jedi Master of the High Council that I will not speak about this to anyone."

Prince Zuko huffs an annoyed but clearly measured breath so as to not hurt himself more. Then his stiff form relaxes. "Okay." He tries to take off his armour and winces. Silently, Iroh helps him take off the plates and open the uniform.

Obi-Wan has seen lots of wounds before, enough of old wounds like these, too. He's still proud to not inhale sharply at the sight because those kind of scars should not mar the body of a teenager. He exchanges one glance with Iroh and his face tells him everything he needs to know. Another piece slots into place. Zhao's sneering face appears in Obi-Wan's memories, Zhao yelling about banished princes and scars to prove.

He doesn't say anything of the thoughts in his head to Zuko – and Zuko he has become now with this show of trust. Obi-Wan examines the two lowest ribs on Zuko's left side, carefully letting the Force roam over bones and hairline fractures. "My real name is Obi-Wan Kenobi", he says to distract Zuko while setting the ribs back into place with an aimed push that can only be this precise because the Force guides him and also to reciprocate his trust. "It's the name I was given when I was found by the Jedi Order as an infant." As he guides the Force to run into hairline fractures and encourage the bone there to mend, he thinks of what to say. Trust goes both ways, after all. "When I became a Knight, I took on a student. He was like you in a lot of ways."

"Like what?", Zuko scoffs bitterly, testing tender healed ribs. "Scarred? Banished?"

Obi-Wan looks at him. Angry, he thinks. Scared. Lonely. "Lost", he finally says. "You feel lost in the Force." Iroh and Zuko give him twin stares of confusion. Oh, Obi-Wan thinks. I forgot to mention that. "Every living thing is connected in the Force, I told you that, didn't I? That also means that one who can sense the Force can sense those around them. You feel lost just like Anakin did." He looks at Iroh. "I don't know why or what I could have done different and maybe that's why I failed him. I failed him and he", – became the very thing he swore to destroy –, "died at the end of the war."

"I'm not lost", Zuko protests. "I have a destiny and I will fulfil it."

"So did he." Obi-Wan kneels down in front of Zuko. "But be careful. Destiny", or the Force, "tends to work in mysterious ways. When you are faced with your destiny, try not to lose yourself." Because I am starting to care for you, I am starting to trust you and I cannot bear to see you turn into another Darth Vader, Obi-Wan thinks, then banishes the laboured breathing sounds of the monster he helped to make from his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah. Ähm... sorry? I think I'm gonna spend the rest of the day picking up the pieces of my heart cause I kinda might have shattered it here.
> 
> The Pai Sho stuff is mostly me making stuff up because canon has like two tiles named and the online game uses completely different tiles, so I just took what worked from those two sources and then made up a lot more. Tiles are named after what I think fits with AtlA (Dragon) and sometimes inspired by Tarot's Major Arcana (Chariot, Wheel of Fortune) or both (Moon). Also, the Rock cannot move by itself but be moved. The Wheel going one place forces to move another tile in the opposite direction.  
> I have, btw, no idea why Obi-Wan and Iroh suddenly decided to talk all that stuff about the galaxy. Ok, it's a getting to know each other but I did not plan for that to take a few thousand words. I'm not sure if the thing with Tatooine being a desert due to an old war is headcanon, fanon or canon in one of the continuities and am too lazy to check now. it's canon for this story at least.  
> I am pretty sure it's fanon that firebenders rise and rest with the sun but I like it, so it's here.  
> Iroh having trouble with insomnia now and then is only hinted at (for example by Liu giving him that long look when he asks for the tea pot) but I think it's a pretty normal thing to have for a veteran soldier with lots of regrets.  
> Obi-Wan and Darth Maul... well. I mean. in old canon he died. Then he was revived for TCW. Then I found this nice old terror called Darth Sion who kept his body going although he was dead more or less by sheer hate. Then I thought that those things go well with each other.  
> Tipp from the author: never ask Obi-Wan for a travel guide. Although, like. look at screenshots of Ilum from swtor. It really is beautiful (in high resolution) apart from the beasts and enemies trying to kill you. Also? Mandalorians and honour? Fire Nation and honour? They'd get along splendidly. Or they'd kill each other. Nothing in between.  
> And I have no idea where that weapon-smith came from but I am in love with my buff lady weapon smith of the Order of the White Lotus. I also had no idea about the White Lotus thing until they suddenly talked about it. Obi-Wan will probably ask about it later. I mean. Unlike Anakin, Obi-Wan knows the meaning of discretion.  
> Erm... Huan shittalking Zuko? I mean. There had to have been a lot of unrest before Jee yelled at Zuko about respect during that storm.  
> Also, Force healing tends to glow in a golden light. At least for Jedi. In SWTOR and some comics.  
> Didn't know that Huan was married until this chapter either. For me being the author I know very little *shrugs*  
> And the girl who hit Caon from behind with a club? Yeah. That was Sokka in warriors of kyoshi gear and make-up.  
> Hutts are giant space slugs in a way (for those who don't know Star Wars), Leia killed the Hutt who put her in a skimpy metal bikini and on a chain with said chain (my princess <3 ) and spice is space heroin. yeah. you read that right.
> 
> Ok, Iroh raising his voice... I mean, that could be considered OoC but, like, book 3 shows very well that he might have mellowed out a little but he's still the guy who broke through ba sing se's outer wall without fancy machinery. and he is protective of his people and since the whole crew are his people... yeah, he's not happy that zuko ignored (off screen given) advice and got his people hurt. And well, like. he changed after Lu Ten died but before that... he was the crown prince and he wasn't ozai but he surely wasn't all tea and pai sho games either. you don't stay crown prince with ozai in your neck when you're all nice. Basically, he was angry for his people, not really angry at Zuko. A bit of that, too, and he's a Fire Nation royal. They all got a temper.  
> Oh right. yeah. Jee is about Iroh's age but he started earlier in the army since iroh was crown prince and all.
> 
> And now I am going to cry some more. It's so good when you finally get them to tentatively trust each other? And then I wrote that. Sorry... ?


	7. During: The King of Omashu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so, since in The King of Omashu, there's no appearance of Zuko nor the Avatar State being triggered, we get a slow, mostly gentle chapter of bonding. I'd say it's fluffy but... it's more bittersweet fluff. You know, like chocolate that looks like 30% cocoa and when you bite it, it's more like 70% cocoa.  
> warning for nightmares, references to PTSD, references to slavery, scars and unpleasant memories. also, references to ozai being a terrible parent. like. the worst. you know the stuff.
> 
> Also, I never thought that this thing would get 100 kudos? like. it's such a niche crossover AU?

### Chapter 7 – During: The King of Omashu

Obi-Wan really should have expected the nightmares. The night after Tao and Caon got hurt on Kyoshi Island, he's startled from his meditation during Huan's shift at the helm by a sudden spike of distress.

It's Zuko and his pain-help-fear-burns radiates violently into the Force. So he excuses himself from Huan's company and she just smiles bitterly. "That always happens sooner or later after meeting Fire Nation. It was worse in the first months."

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow questioningly.

"Don't get me wrong. I still think he's a brat who doesn't know the first thing about anything but I was there, you know. I lost my post as a palace guard because I helped General Iroh get the brat to safety after that Agni Kai."

"And in turn he acts like the bantha in the pottery shop." Obi-Wan understands her frustration. Force knows, he's had enough experience with that kind of behaviour between Qui-Gon, Anakin and, less often, Ahsoka.

"If a bantha is anything like a saber-tooth moose lion, then yes."

Obi-Wan shrugs. "It's a bit like the Avatar's flying bison, just with longer brown fur and curled horns. And it can't fly." At least he's never seen a flying bantha and after nineteen years on Tatooine he should have seen one if they could fly. "How did you know that I'm leaving because of Prince Zuko?"

"I told you. It always happens. And you knew that Tao and Caon were in trouble in the island. No idea how but I'm neither deaf, blind nor dumb. I can figure stuff out without being told." She makes a shooing motion with her hand. "Now get going. I don't like that brat but he starts screaming if it gets bad enough and that'll wake General Iroh which I cannot allow."

He doesn't bother with unlocking Zuko's door. After all, Obi-Wan knows how bad it can get when a Jedi has violent nightmares and he rather doubts that a person who can shoot fire from their hands is any less dangerous.

Zuko is curled up on his futon, one hand at his face, the other arm wrapped around himself. Heat is flaring around his form. He's whimpering. Pleading. Obi-Wan tries not to listen but he can hear enough cries of "Father, no, no, please" and "I'll do better, I promise" to guess where Zuko is right now.

He wraps him in all the calm-I'm-here-comfort he can find in the Force even though he doubts that Zuko can feel it. He's not Force sensitive after all. Obi-Wan settles down on his right side, his good side and gives him a gentle nudge with the Force, fully prepared for the attack that may or may not come. When he had been woken from nightmares, he usually had attacked whoever woke him up since most of his nightmares were of torture and battlefields and- He doesn't go there now.

Zuko only flinches but his consciousness is returning from the nightmare realm.

"Prince Zuko", Obi-Wan says. "You're safe."

The teen inhales shakily. "Where's uncle?", he asks and his voice is raspy with bitten down shouts.

"Still asleep", Obi-Wan responds after having checked the Force. "Iroh hasn't slept at all last night. He needs his rest."

"Did I-?"

"Scream?", Obi-Wan finishes his question. "No. I woke you up before that." He strokes his beard. "Do you want a cup of tea?"

"You can't make a cup of tea", Zuko frowns.

"If I can levitate cuffs around my wrists and ankles, then I can get a cup of tea down here. I'd have to ask Huan to make it, though."

"No." Zuko sits up, legs drawn to his chest and he looks so vulnerable. So lost. "I'm fine."

Obi-Wan doesn't need the Force to know that that's a lie. "Very well." He thinks of his clan in the crèche and how they huddled together in those nights when of them had had a premonition. "I know I'm not your uncle but do you want me to stay until you fall asleep again?"

"I don't think I'll fall asleep again."

Obi-Wan tries to read between the lines although the Force isn't helpful with Zuko's presence currently being one conflicted mess. "Then you want me to leave?"

He scowls. "I can take care of myself."

"I know but that's not what I asked", Obi-Wan can't help the chuckle. "I never wanted to be alone after my nightmares."

"You get nightmares?" Zuko's still sitting in that crouched, protective position but he's raising his head now.

Obi-Wan nods. "Not since my death since I don't sleep any longer but before... there were times when they came every night", he confesses. After Zigoola. After Rattatak. After... well, after. He settles down comfortably.

Zuko doesn't speak. Obi-Wan can feel him calming down a little as confusion takes over and he can feel him building up a question again and again before discarding it.

Obi-Wan doesn't ask. Zuko will speak when he's ready.

"You didn't ask", Zuko finally says. "About, about my scars."

Ah, Obi-Wan thinks, that. "It wasn't my place to ask."

"Everyone else doe-did." He's mumbling into his knees now. Obi-Wan wonders shortly if Zuko will try to forget this whole episode in the morning and comes to the conclusion, that yes, Zuko will act like nothing happened once the sun is up again. He will probably shout a bit more than usual if he's anything like Anakin. "Except for my face because everyone knows that story."

"Did you want me to ask?"

Zuko looks at his hands that clench around his calves. "No. I just thought... it doesn't matter." He looks at Obi-Wan. No, he looks at Obi-Wan's neck.

Surprised, he notices that his hand must have gone up to his neck since Zuko started asking about his scars. He hasn't thought about his own scars, about that particular scar, for a while now. It's easy to forget when he always hides it beneath the high collars of his robes. "I got my first scar that wasn't a training accident when I was twelve years old, a week from turning thirteen. Maybe two." He slides down the collar of his robes a bit to reveal the distinct circular and dotted pattern that runs around the base of his neck. "Where I come from, everyone knows what this is. Was. Everyone that mattered, at least." He doubts that Padmé knew. Or Bail Organa. But maybe he did. Obi-Wan still doesn't know what Bail pieced together during their time on Zigoola. He'll never know now because Alderaan is gone. Bail is gone. And Obi-Wan himself is also gone, in a way. "I've been asked about it. A lot. Because how can a Jedi have a burn mark from a slave collar?" He scoffs.

"Slave?", Zuko sputters. "But... but you were a general. And whatever a Jedi is."

Obi-Wan straightens his robes. It's a painful memory and he doesn't like to bare himself like this in front of someone he barely knows. He told the healers at the Temple once they returned. He told the High Council because things had to be done. He told Anakin because having been slaves – however short Obi-Wan's slavery had been – was a past they shared.

A sigh escapes his lips. "I almost failed my Jedi training. A Jedi is supposed to be just, compassionate, neutral and above all else a Jedi is supposed to be calm. I used to have a quick temper so I failed trials and it was decided to send me away from the Temple." A disappointment to the Fire Nation, an embarrassment, a failure, Zhao sneers in his memories. Banished. Obi-Wan wonders if he would have turned out like Zuko, always angry, if he hadn't become a Jedi. If he would have fallen like Anakin. "It was a mining", planet, "region and I was sent to a service corps tasked to regrow plants there. Unfortunately, there was also a conflict between different mining operations going on and a Jedi Master was sent to negotiate. Doubly unfortunately", something Cody has called Kenobi luck, "the leader of one of those operations was an enemy of the Jedi Master and since I interacted with that Jedi Master, I became a target." He decides to skip over the part where Xanatos had offered him to join him in taking down the Jedi Order that had pushed both of them out, over the half-truths about Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan's honest but rash words to Xanatos. Force, he had been so rash to act then. "He overwhelmed me in a fight, put the slave collar on me and sent me off to the deep sea mines. The guards there were... they punished often and excessively. One of their favourite punishments was to put the electro... to run lightning through the slave collars. The metal burnt into my skin and I had no way of treating them." He shrugs. "But people saw the scar and suddenly all they saw was a former slave."

Zuko involuntarily touches the marred skin surrounding his left eye. He lets the hand sink when he notices Obi-Wan watching him. "Yes", he says. "They see the scar and... I know that they call me the burnt prince. Uncle always looks guilty about it."

He _feels guilty_ about it, Obi-Wan adds internally. "I wouldn't know why", he says instead. He can guess, though. Huan had mentioned that Iroh had been there during the Agni Kai that left Zuko scarred and banished. "Do you want that cup of tea now?"

He shakes his head. "No. No. I'm fine. I'll go back to sleep." But he doesn't send Obi-Wan out and he doesn't move from his sitting position either. So Obi-Wan waits. "You're considered to be pretty strong?"

Obi-Wan has no idea where that comes from or where that is supposed to go. "I think I was. Not everyone becomes a Master of the High Council." Not everyone did so as relatively young as he had been. There had been younger masters in the High Council but not that many.

"Although you had nightmares?"

He hasn't met Zuko's father yet and Obi-Wan hopes he never will. The more he hears, the less he can stay calm like a Jedi should. "Yes. Although I had nightmares."

"I think you can return to Huan at the helm now."

He tries to concentrate on the Pai Sho board, he really does. Zuko is yelling at anyone who looks at him funny and Iroh is... he's clearly not concentrating either. It's hard to ignore that Iroh's usually calm Force presence is running wild like the Kamino ocean and it's distracting Obi-Wan thoroughly because he has been using Iroh to ground himself and that doesn't work now.

"You're moving the rock, Iroh", Obi-Wan tells him gently. "I thought the rock cannot move unless moved by another tile."

Iroh blinks and the stare that was a parsec away is gone. "Oh. Hm." He puts the rock tile back into its place and for the first time this game he really looks at the board. "I seem to be a little distracted."

"War memories?"

"Possibly." Iroh sighs and puts his tiles back into their bowl. "I concede defeat in this game."

Obi-Wan gives him a measured look. "I don't accept. We'll play again another time. Until then... I know what I did when I was in a mood like yours. How do you feel about some distraction combined with physical exertion?"

"Intrigued. Especially how a ghost wants to help with that."

"I happen to have been a renowned warrior among the Jedi Order. Not on par with Mace or Dooku, of course", maybe he could have been one day when he would have perfected his Soresu, "but I can still demonstrate how the sequences are done and run you through them." Iroh thinks. "You bought that sword."

Iroh gives it some serious thought now. "You would like Piandao", he says then. "Alright, show me how your people use a sword."

Oh, Obi-Wan thinks. To demonstrate he will have to wield that sword.

He lets the shields drop that keep him non-transparent and non-glowy to concentrate on his movements and on levitating the sword along with his movements to try and get a feel for the different balance. He places his hand on the handle. "Hmm, this could prove a problem. Where I come from, a saber is traditionally held with two hands even if it can be wielded with just one."

With a frown Obi-Wan tries out the first sequence of his favoured style, Soresu, while only utilizing one hand. He is well aware that it's not only Iroh watching him. Zuko is mulling over maps but he's looking at Obi-Wan from the corner of his eye. Jingxi has her lunch break, Tao is still on precautionary sick leave and Caon, although having woken up, is in no condition to work yet. He has that predicted headache and occasional bouts of dizziness.

"It should work", he says after testing the second sequence as well. "Very well, the Order recognizes seven forms of saber combat. Shii-cho, the Way of the Sarlacc, is the most basic of these forms." Obi-Wan explains as he has once been explained these things. There's the familiar dull ache where he should feel other Jedi and the newer ache that he didn't have the time to explain these things to Luke. "It's the form taught to all Initiates as soon as they're able to hold a saber." Of course, Initiates aren't sent to train with real lightsabers immediately. They get training sabers who, despite their potential to wound, at least can't be fatal unless someone really wanted to kill the other. "The Sarlacc is a creature that lies in wait to strike at just the right moment."

"That sounds like earthbending", Iroh comments.

"I wouldn't know." Obi-Wan moves into the opening stance of Shii-cho's first sequence. It feels strange because the movements are so familiar and yet so foreign because he's not moving like a person, he's a ghost and he cannot grip the jian with his hands, he has to levitate it with the Force and the handle is too short to give him the illusion of a lightsaber. "We were drilled in the basic sequences until we could perform them in our sleep. The li- saber instructors wanted to make sure that we knew our basics so that we could safely learn the more advanced forms. Or go on and master Shii-cho."

Slowly, very slowly, Obi-Wan moves from the opening stance through the first sequence. He misses the way his muscles should work, the way his breath should follow his movements and the calm that should follow.

"To be honest, the first sequence of Shii-cho is mostly about learning how to hold the saber and how to perform the basic strikes without cutting yourself", he says once he has run thrice through the movements. "Here." He hands the jian to Iroh. "You've put Prince Zuko and all soldiers on board through drills. Time to work up a sweat yourself."

Iroh weighs the jian in his hands, then lets it cut through the air to test its balance. "I will have you meet Piandao for sure", he comments as he imitates Obi-Wan's opening stance.

"All in due time." Obi-Wan pushes against Iroh's shoulder with the Force to check his stance. He's not surprised that it's as solid as it looks. Firebending may be a completely different form of combat but stripped down of everything else, the basics are very similar. There are just so many ways a human body can move – non-humanoid Jedi usually very early developed styles more fitting to their physique. "Good stance. Proceed."

Obi-Wan sees Zuko eye them the whole time. He wonders if Zuko would like to learn lightsaber forms, too. There had been swords on the wall of his room after all.

Obi-Wan snaps awake with a start. First he fell unconscious in the Southern Air Temple and now he fell asleep? He's starting to suspect that it's not the case of Qui-Gon leaving out details about being a Force ghost but rather that this world interacts differently with a ghost.

In his dream he had been back on Bandomeer which is not surprising after talking about the deep sea mines with Zuko. Obi-Wan recounts what he remembers of the dream and considers classifying it as a nightmare. The deep sea mines. The slave collar and the electro jabbers. The mining shafts of the Home Planet Mine but instead they were below the sea and his oxygen had run out... Hmm. Nightmare.

He gets up and stretches. His ghost body feels wrong. Obi-Wan frowns, looks down and the ground is too close although his boots touch the ground. "Fierfek", he mutters, followed by a few choice swears in Mandalorian that call the honour of the Force into question and make a few suggestion where the Force can shove its ideas of what Obi-Wan has to go through. "I should have known." He looks like he's twelve again. Transparent, glowy but definitely like his twelve year old self. Qui-Gon had changed appearances a few times during his visits on Tatooine but most of the time he had tried to look the way Obi-Wan remembered him. "I should have kriffing known." Except that it had slipped his mind until now.

"Who are you?", he's suddenly confronted with a very upset Liu who's threatening him with fire.

"How many blue glowing ghosts do you know?", he asks and can't keep the annoyance out of his voice. A very childish voice. Oh Force, he hadn't even gone through his voice break yet when he had been twelve and his Force ghost form reflects that. "I must have... fekking memories and nightmares."

"Ben?", Liu asks to confirm.

"Who else?" Obi-Wan knows that he should not snap at him but he has just woken up from a nightmare he thought he would never have again because ghosts don't sleep. Just that, apparently, at least one ghost does. He exhales deeply, reaches into the Force and thinks of his older body.

"You're flickering."

Obi-Wan breathes in, breathes out. He looks again. There. That's better. He's at the right height again. "Let's not talk about this ever again, shall we?"

Liu nods, his eyes wide. "You still don't look like Ben. I mean. Your hair..."

He looks down. He's older, alright, but there are scorch marks on his tunics. Little, circular scorch marks like they had been burnt into the fabric by little pebbles of lava. His hands are less rough than what he's used to. "It's not white?"

"It's fire hair. I've never seen anything like it."

Mustafar. He's probably switched into what he looked like right after Mustafar. It's not surprising given that most of his nightmares usually revolve around Mustafar now, sometimes a little Queyta thrown in for good measure. "The zines called it anything from ginger to auburn to other ridiculous names", he grumbles as he remembers the holonet turning the Clone Wars into a... spectacle of sorts. He remembers, with extreme dislike, the interviews Palpatine had pushed on them 'to boost morale'. "It's just hair."

Obi-Wan reaches into the Force again to return to that appearance that he is so used to. He can deal with being the centre of attention, he's had practice, but he's still uncomfortable when it's about his looks, especially something that just is.

Yes, that's me, he thinks when he has finally gotten the Force to cooperate with his ghost body. "Not a word about this to anybody."

Iroh is paying attention to their next game, Liu keeps sending Obi-Wan glances but so far doesn't talk about it and Zuko is back to being a surly teenager on a fool's errand.

"You're improving", Iroh comments as Obi-Wan manages to block Iroh's white lotus. It's not completely captured and Iroh's avatar is too close to keep the lotus blocked but he's getting there.

"Might I have the next game, Ben?", Jingxi drops down at the board. "Of course, I'm nowhere near General Iroh's match."

"Neither am I", Obi-Wan responds as Iroh captures his sky bison with the dragon. "But it could be beneficial to study different approaches to the game. It is a rather pleasant but complex pastime."

He has his rock tile move next to Iroh's sea serpent. He will lose the rock in the next turn but it forces Iroh to move his sea serpent in reach of Obi-Wan's avatar tile and sacrificing the rock to take the sea serpent off the board is good enough for him.

Zuko trains his firebending forms and watches. Obi-Wan wonders when he'll approach them. Not today, probably not tomorrow either. But he's watching and despite that anger that he uses to fuel his fire, there's a desire to belong filling in the cracks made by doubt.

Obi-Wan silently swears when Iroh gets to replace his sea serpent with the wheel. Well, at least he can spend the time he's here due to the mysterious workings of the Force in good company with intriguing new things to learn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah. okay. so this chapter was mostly me going "everyone's PTSD shows differently and also, people react differently when woken from nightmares". Like, Zuko's nightmare is that Agni Kai, so I think when he's woken up he wouldn't lash out but instead cower even more. since that's how he survived. Obi-Wan's nightmares on the other hand mostly revolve around him needing to fight so when he someone shakes him awake (didn't happen here but might very well happen later), he attacks them. Iroh on the other hand rarely has nightmares (might be physical exertion, might be his tea, might be his spirit world journey) and instead faces insomnia more. And a kind of thousand-yard-stare. cause, you know, his trauma is also mostly war-related like obi-wan's.  
> I'm looking forward to learning more about Huan and the others and how they're connected to Iroh. Anyway, this was just to clarify her feelings on the matter. Like, she knows that Zuko went through one hell of a childhood but that doesn't mean that she likes being treated like someone expendable and getting yelled at on a regular basis for things she has no control over. And, unlike Iroh, she doesn't carry that massive guilt. ok, she watched. but she's not as involved in the whole mess as Iroh is. And she hasn't seen her wife in almost three years and Zuko doesn't even kinda thank them for more or less joining him in banishment.  
> Zuko and the nightmare? I think it's headcanon that Obi-Wan never pushed Anakin for answers and Anakin interpreted that as Obi-Wan not caring. With Zuko, not pushing is imo the right strategy cause it makes him feel safer and more in control. which, you know, trauma.  
> The slave thing is... headcanonly adapted from the first (or second?) Jedi Apprentice novel which are about how Obi-Wan became Qui-Gon's Padawan and then went on to become the young man we see in Episode I. He had to wear that slave shock collar thing and was imprisoned on a Bandomeer deep sea mine (a few days? a week? i forgot and am too lazy to check) and the guards had electro jabbers. I think they shocked him through the collar once but, again, not sure, kinda forgot and am too lazy to check now. (also, I think we see Obi-Wan's neck in Episode I and there's no mark but hey, my city now and it would explain why he wears those collars so high and tight later in life)  
> I have no idea when and how Obi-Wan and Piandao will meet but it will be glorious, involve lots of tea, swordfighting and pai sho and probably also chilling in a rock garden.  
> I also have no idea when Obi-Wan and Zuko will do sword stuff but it'll happen and it'll be fun.  
> I admit that I wrote the last part mostly to have some fun. Also for shoving Obi-Wan's nose onto the fact that being a Force ghost works differently in AtlA. And, you know, grumbly Obi-Wan? He's usually pretty well tempered but even calm Jedi Masters can have bad days. And of course Force ghosts can shift their appearance. After all we see old man Anakin in the first cuts of Episode VI and young man Anakin in the later cuts. That's totally because Force ghosts change their appearance :D (but Obi-Wan sees himself as old man Ben, so he'll stay in that form most of the time)  
> Also, did you notice that the only hair colours in AtlA are black, different shades of dark brown, white and grey? Of course a ginger sticks out and with the morning sun on ginger hair, I think it would be called fire hair. Especially by a Fire Nation soldier. I wonder what Liu will say once he sees the golden glow healing^^


	8. Imprisoned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is sponsored by the author's sleep deprivation (seriously, but it's getting better, slowly).
> 
> And I tried with the fluff, I really did but then I remembered that the prison rig exists and that the earthbenders were forced to work on some stuff there and then it ran away from me. But I promise, on the Force and my safety copy hard drive, that I got very fluffy stuff planned for after the solstice. Maybe not a full chapter of fluff but I can at least try?
> 
> warning for hints at colonization, at suicidal Jedi during the Clone Wars, at animal cruelty (none of these are more than maybe two sub clauses, but just in case)  
> warning for the whole prison rig being like a labour camp thing and talk about how war is terrible and not just battlefields (not too in-depth but it's more than a few sub clauses)

### Chapter 8 – Imprisoned

Obi-Wan is growing unnerved with his company. He knows that it is not their fault that about three quarters of what he communicates just doesn't register with them. They use a different body language than he does, his own influenced greatly by his crèche mates in the Temple, most of whom hadn't been human but from a multitude of species. Body language can be learned, of course. Most of the diplomatic courses he took during his training as a negotiator had included classes on body language. What couldn't be learned is the more unnerving part. None of these people are Force-sensitive. Their bending seems to be connected to the Force somehow but it doesn't allow them to feel the Force and the people around them the way he can. It's one of the first thing they taught in every diplomatic course. Jedi communicate a lot with the Force. It was taught as a reminder to not expect the diplomatic partner to pick up on their subconscious Force communication because most people just can't.

Rationally, Obi-Wan knows this. It's just... the last nineteen years he has spent in hiding, so he hasn't interacted much with anyone and before that... before that he had interacted a lot with other Jedi. He knows this and he knows that he can't blame Iroh and Prince Zuko and the rest of the crew for not understanding him in a language they can't even perceive. He knows this and still...

The lack of touch is just another thing on top of that. Force, he misses touch. With his crèche mates he has always been very tactile, also with those Jedi he became close with later. The Fire Nation, as it seems, is not. It's no surprise that they are still distant from him and he's a ghost so touch isn't something they can do anyway, but they aren't even passing fleeting shoulder pats or similar with each other.

He settles down to meditate. Usually, he meditates annoyance away by performing sequences because the familiar movements help him to clear his mind. Just that they aren't familiar at the moment because his ghost body doesn't move like a body should.

Obi-Wan closes his eyes. In. Out.

The Force flows with his breathing, pushes and pulls like the waves around the ship. Obi-Wan sighs in relief as he feels his tension flow out into the ocean. For a few precious moments he just breathes. In. Out. Push. Pull.  
He should have meditated properly before. It's soothing.

Obi-Wan dives deeper into the Force. He lets his surroundings flow in, lets the impressions come and lets them go. In. Out. Push. Pull. Like the waves on the ocean. Caon and Liu are moving through drills. Tao is snoring below deck. Iroh and mulling over a map while Lieutenant Jee mans the helm. Zuko searching the skies for any sign of Aang's bison. Huan in the galley working in tandem with Lee. Jingxi firing the engines, one whirlwind of flame and determination. He lingers. It's deadly but beautiful. Like the currents far below the surface of the sea Obi-Wan moves on.

He breathes. In. Out. He stretches his mind further out to check on Aang and Katara and, as well as he can with a non-bender, Sokka. They are safe, mostly. Not as distant as he would like them but far enough.

Reassured, Obi-Wan returns his attention to his surroundings without leaving the calm embrace of the Force completely. He lets the thoughts come and drift away. Soothing. Calm. Slowly, he relaxes. 

He doesn't want to get up just yet but even nineteen years with little else to do but watch, meditate and survive in the desert, couldn't teach him to stay still for long. His eyes settle on the bowl with Pai Sho tiles. Why not?, he thinks and begins to levitate them while still basking in the feeling of wholeness that the Force gives him right now.

Pai Sho tiles don't hum with the Force like lightsaber crystals, they don't slot into each other like the components of a lightsaber, they are just pieces of carved wood but there's sixty of them and Obi-Wan wants to just enjoy the Force and keep his mind occupied. A lightsaber would be better but he can make do with this.

He has built a few lightsabers over the years and he is familiar with the steps that are needed to fit all the pieces. So he does what is familiar and lifts the Pai Sho tiles into the air one by one to form the shape of the hilt pieces. Focus. The Avatar tile slots into the middle as the main crystal, the white lotus tile between Avatar and blade opening for the waterproof cyclical ignition. It's just an approximation of course but it helps.

In. Out. He breathes.

Meditating properly was a good idea, he assesses. Piece by piece he dismantles his Pai Sho tile lightsaber and floats them back into their bo-

"There!", Zuko suddenly yells. "The Avatar's bison!"

Obi-Wan's concentration shatters and the half of the tiles he hasn't put back into their bowl clatter around and through him to the ground. Rolling his eyes he picks them up again while he searches for Aang.

He's actually close and... Obi-Wan checks again. Katara isn't with him. It's only Aang and Sokka. Obi-Wan frowns and searches for Katara.

"Uncle! Give me the map."

"Please", Obi-Wan adds absent-mindedly, still sifting through the currents of the Force for the presence of Katara. "It's imperative for royalty to show proper manners so as to be a good example for their people." Caon misses a step in his careful sparring with Liu. Liu coughs unconvincingly.

Zuko glares. "Uncle, would you give me the map, _please_?"

"Of course, Prince Zuko." Iroh exchanges a glance with Obi-Wan. Obi-Wan nods back. Iroh, for various reasons cannot talk to Zuko like this. Obi-Wan, on the other hand, can. He's an outsider, for one.

"Why is he going there?", Zuko mumbles, already entranced with tracing patterns on the map.

Obi-Wan joins them to look over Zuko's shoulder. He can't read the signs on the map. They don't fit with any of the alphabets that he has learnt. For a second he wonders why he understands the language then but decides not to ponder on it because it will just lead into the Force and philosophy and he's had enough of that the last two decades. Instead he tries to think like the general he has been. There's nothing in the direction Aang is heading, nothing where he can feel Katara now.

"Maybe it is not about where he is going", Iroh suggests.

Zuko traces the route back to the coast where Aang must have come from. "That's one of the newer colonies."

Obi-Wan has, due to wars and long, tedious negotiations, developed quite a dislike for the word colonies. It always involved painful history. "They were separated from Katara. The Water Tribe girl. She's in that direction."

"The prison rig", Zuko points to an unmarked location on the map. "We passed there a year ago." He frowns. "How do you know that they are separated?"

There are a lot of reasons not to explain too much about what he can really do as a Jedi – Palpatine had found frugal ground to sow fear of them at the time – but he finds that, maybe, he can tell a little. "The ways of the Force are mysterious", he can't help but tease, "in short, the Force connects everything, so, if I know a person, I can find them with the Force and Aang has a very distinctive presence. I also know Katara isn't with him."

"Then we make full speed towards the prison rig", Zuko decides. "If the waterbender is there, the Avatar will surely come for her and I can catch him then."

Obi-Wan regards the setting sun. "I hope you have more of a plan than that, because while I may not need a whole lot of rest, this is how many days in a row now where everyone was on and off working and sleeping?" He strokes his beard. "In the war my troops and I were run to the ground, purposefully, I might add, but even we did our best to get at least a day of rest before shipping out again, at best a whole week."

"It doesn't matter", Zuko mutters but not quietly enough not to be heard by some of the crew whose reactions in the Force are... colourful, to put it nicely. "Once I have caught the Avatar, I can bring him home and we're done here."

He wants to say something to that. Anything. He's just not sure how to address the glaring problems about all of it. So Obi-Wan just radiates the equivalent of a sigh and a shaking head into the Force and for once he is glad that none of the others can feel it.

"Is it my imagination or is your firebending weaker at night?", Obi-Wan asks Iroh who is running through what seems like a variation of Shii-cho's first sequence with some missed steps and a less than flawless form while using fire.

"It is not your imagination." Iroh releases a last blast of fire, returns into a rest position and takes a measured breath. It's a common enough sign that an exercise is over. "Our inner fire is given by Agni, after all, so when Agni rests our fire is weaker."

Obi-Wan is... well, he's gaining an outsider's perspective on how Jedi must have looked to everyone who cannot feel the Force. He doesn't understand how a spirit can be a giant ball of superheated plasma and gas a sizable distance away from this planet if this world follows the same general physical laws that his home does. It makes a bit of sense that the planet being between the sun and a firebender would weaken their connection. There are ways to inhibit the Force, too. "So what do you during a solar eclipse? You have this world, you have a moon in circular orbit and you are in orbit around the sun, so you should have solar eclipses."

Iroh tenses for a moment, then consciously relaxes. "We call a solar eclipse a black sun and you guessed correctly, a black sun takes away our bending for a while."

"There are ways to cut someone off from the Force, too." Obi-Wan shudders at the memory, a flicker of failing shields running through his form. "It feels like... losing your eyes and ears and sense of smell and then you're told to navigate the world by taste alone."

Eyes closed, Iroh nods. "It is similar. To feel the sun is a part of who I am, a part of every firebender, in fact. Losing that connection..."

"It's like dying." Obi-Wan has heard of Jedi in the Clone Wars, who, due to the horrors they witnessed in the Force, had ripped apart their connection to it. Some survived, catatonic, most died. He had never dared to meet one, so they all were just another sad statistic in the Council meetings, numbers that never made it out of those chambers. He clears his throat. "It's good then that solar eclipses don't last long."

"Indeed."

"So here was I", Caon keeps the night at bay with stories and wild gestures, "and there was the most ill-tempered dragon moose I'd ever seen. Now, you may ask, Caon why didn't you run?"

"Actually, yeah, Caon, why didn't you run?", Jingxi asks between yawns.

Caon laughs. "You see, there was this little problem. Before I climbed up that tree the fastest I've ever climbed a tree and ever will have climbed a tree, I was taking a bath in the river. My ma'd said that I should never get home with dirt that shouldn't be there. So I was washing off that dirt that came from a very special place where young boy Caon had no business to be but I couldn't go home with wet pants, could I?"

Obi-Wan chuckles. He has a good idea where this is going.

"So of course I'd taken off my pants and shirt before taking that bath in the river and that's actually when that nasty tempered dragon moose appeared. But see, she was a really old dragon moose cow and practically blind so she'd been sniffing around and found my pants and shirt. And you know those antlers? Yeah... so. Apparently, this old lady had staked a claim to this river and surroundings and she couldn't sniff me out in the river but she smelled my clothes and bamm! attacked them. Just that, you know, clothes don't really lend itself well to being attacked with antlers and now they stuck on top of her antlers while I was standing naked in that river. And that's why I didn't run."

Tao returns from the galley with a bowl of red flakes. "Anyone else want fire flakes?" He passes around a bowl that is happily accepted. Obi-Wan wonders if they are as spicy as they sound and if that makes them as spicy as some of the dishes he'd eaten on Mandalore back in the day. "Come on, Caon, now tell them how you escaped from that angry dragon moose cow."

Caon sighs. "Alright. So there I was standing. Naked. In the river with the sun slowly going down and that angry dragon moose cow still stomping around while she tried to kill my pants on her antlers. Now, I couldn't keep standing in that river, could I? Ma wanted me home, after all. But I couldn't really leave the river either cause then the cow would sniff me out and run me down. So what was I to do?" Caon frowns in mock confusion. "Anyone ever seen the dragon goat fights? Where I grew up, it was tradition to have such fights annually and those dragon goats love attacking by ramming their head into their target. So, there I was in that river and I'd seen enough of those dragon goat fights to think I could do the same and a dragon goat is practically the same as a dragon moose, right?"

Obi-Wan thinks back fondly to having made similar mistakes. Ah, the folly of youth.

"So I jumped out of the river, in front of the next tree and yelled to get her attention. Problem is, a dragon moose cow is much bigger than a dragon goat and she had a really nasty temper. So she stopped her stomping to go straight into attacking me. She did run against that tree, so that part of my plan had worked. Trouble is, a dragon moose has a really hard head so she wasn't even getting muddle-headed. She just turned and ran right after me again. And that's the story of how I did the fastest tree climbing I ever managed."

That sounds exactly like something Quinlan would have done. Actually, Obi-Wan isn't sure if Quinlan didn't do something like this. He's pretty sure there was an episode with a wampa... "You still haven't told how you got away from the dragon moose cow", Obi-Wan reminds Caon.

"I was hanging onto that tree for dear life and prayed that Agni would forgive my fool-headedness and send someone to save me and that's when General Iroh came by. He'd been on vacation there with- well, he was on vacation and I owe him my life. Or at least my dignity." Caon shrugs. "And then we met again years later in camp and I still serve him now."

"You all know how I met General Iroh", Huan says, "and we all told each other the other stories again and again... Ben, do you know any good stories?"

"Yes, I-" Obi-Wan freezes. He knows a lot of stories. He even has his own share of funny and embarrassing stories to tell. The trouble is... how does he tell stories about starships, droids and a whole galaxy to people who've never had contact to a world beyond their planet? "I'm actually not sure how to tell them because I don't have the right words... but I can try."

Iroh joins the group. Zuko is still standing at the bow and searches the sky for any sign of Aang. "I would love to hear a story from your home."

"Let me think..." Obi-Wan leans back and closes his eyes. He's not sure he can tell them about Anakin, about the bright boy who came up with mischief whenever he could and found trouble the rest of the time. He wants to talk about the Temple, he thinks, because maybe then he can remember the better days and cast off some of the horror he feels every time he is reminded of the Temple. "First of all, I have to say that my home is very different from yours. There's no bending where I come from, but some people, like me, can sense the Force, an energy that connects every living being. Those who are Force-sensitive usually become part of the Jedi Order and grow up in the Jedi-Temple in", on, "the great city of Coruscant", the planet of Coruscant. "Imagine... the Temple is a giant pyramid like building and you can fit a small city inside there because most Jedi live in the Temple. So that's my home and that's what you should imagine for what I'm about to tell you."

"So a Jedi is a kind of monk or sage?", Tao asks, shovelling more fire flakes into his mouth.

Obi-Wan shrugs. "I don't know. I've seen many cultures that have a tradition of monks or sages or titles along the line and Jedi hold similarities to those but also not. We're Jedi." He's really not sure how to explain what a Jedi is. They just are. "My story takes place when I was still fourteen years old. My Master and I had just finished some missions and we had finally been allowed time back in the Temple to recuperate. Well, actually, my Master got chewed out by the Council after we'd given our reports and my friends thought I needed a celebration more than rest and cleaning up my quarters which I really should have done."

He tries to remember what comes next. It's a curse of old age to remember all those terrible things burnt into the mind and slowly forget about the good that just fades out of memory. "So what happened is that we, Quinlan, Garen, Bant, Siri and I, sneaked away from the Temple. We went to Maz's Sparkling Stars ice cream parlour – best ice cream in", on, "Coruscant – but that part isn't actually important. Fact is that once we got there and had all settled down with a cup of Maz's best, I got called back to the Temple." Obi-Wan sighs. It had been the best ice cream he'd never gotten to eat. Maz had closed shop soon after and instead turned to piracy... he's not sure what she's doing right now but, whatever it is, it's going to be interesting. "I promise that I had every intention of immediately returning to the Temple without hold-up-"

"But?", Iroh teases.

"Well...", Obi-Wan shrugs. "I took a shortcut, or rather something that should have been a shortcut but I was held up. I saw a bunch of kids harassing a group of tookas, small felines. So I stepped in and told them to leave them be or try me. Most kids don't feel like taking on a Jedi, even if that Jedi is still an apprentice at the time. So there I was with a little group of tookas, a mom and her kittens. The mother was hurt, so I couldn't just leave them there. That's why I wrapped them in my cloak for safety and returned to the Temple with them. At the Temple gates they already called me to appear before the Council as soon as possible which usually translates to immediately so I ran, with the tookas in my cloak, towards the Council chamber." Huan stifles a snort. "Of course I couldn't just appear in front of the Council with a bunch of tookas in my arms so I left the cloak outside of the chambers in a corner so that they'd have a nest and told them to stay there..."

"Cats don't stay where you tell them to stay." Tao looks into his now empty bowl of fire flakes as though he can some more that way.

Obi-Wan laughs. "Yes, I found that out the hard way then." So what came next? "The Council meeting was an emergency request of diplomatic aid and bodyguard duties from Mandalore that was just engulfed in a civil war... to be fair, they usually are. Our recuperation stay was cut short for a mission to protect the future Duchess of Mandalore... I'm deviating. When we left the Council chambers there was my cloak in a corner. No tookas. Of course. I didn't know where they went but with half the Council joining us on the way down and my Master at my side I didn't exactly want to look. And that's how I let a family of tookas go wild in the Temple." And if Obi-Wan has any say about it, this story will never be repeated because if Mace at some point gets a confession out of Obi-Wan that it was him who caused that feline infestation, then his days as a Force ghost might come to a sudden end.

Caon frowns. "I think you're cutting it a bit short in the end."

"There's not much left to tell." Obi-Wan strokes his beard. "We left for Mandalore and didn't get to return for a whole year in which the tookas continued to roam the Temple, procreated and seemingly also got other tooka packs to live with them in the Temple. By the time we returned, it was called an infestation or a plague or the best thing that ever happened depending on who you asked but the culprit who brought the first tookas into the Temple was never found..." Ah, yes, Mace would kill him for this. There had been that one episode, prelude to the Great Tooka Hunt, where two tooka mothers had wanted to nest in Mace's meditation spot and had ruined all his seating cushions. They had been, of course, just material possessions and he hadn't been attached... "From then on I was always very careful in picking up strays."

They arrive at the prison rig about an hour after dawn by Obi-Wan's estimation. Zuko is already pacing at the bow while Iroh still meditates with a small flame and a cup of tea. Obi-Wan just watches as the metal prison rig grows closer and closer. He can't feel prisoners there, just some very worried people, but not the typical mix of resignation-resist-tired that is usual for prisoners in these kind of places. There's still an echo of that present like it has seeped into the metal plates of the rig and never really left but there's also an echo of a fight and triumph...

"There should be ships here", Huan says with a frown. "Not in reach for the prisoners but there should be at least one in case of evacuation. It's protocol."

Obi-Wan searches the place again with the Force. No prisoners but fight and triumph... "I think the prisoners escaped. After all, Aang was here and I can't see those children ignore such a thing."

Zuko and Iroh are held up by the prison commander who's oozing fear and anger, so Obi-Wan decides to look around by himself. The whole rig is made from metal. It looks like some dark, lower level Coruscant version of the Kamino cities. He doesn't find cells, just a big empty courtyard with empty bowls and some ragged blankets. He finds construction areas where metal plates are waiting to be bolted to other plates to build this rig even bigger...

"This isn't a prison", Obi-Wan says icily when he feels Zuko join him. "It's a labour camp. It's where those people are sent that can't be killed outright. So they call it labour camp or prison and work people to death." The Empire had started a few on Tatooine and the surrounding planets to intimidate the Hutts. Obi-Wan had dismantled as many as he dared. He would have gone up against all of them but there had been Luke and he couldn't... "That is also what your Fire Nation does, Prince Zuko. That's also your war. It's not just battles and skirmishes and quests and no war is ever only fought on battlefields." He pushes against a plate which budges only a little. "A war like this is always about breaking down the opponent's resistance." He finds a single, brittle black rock. Coal? Maybe coal. So he lifts it into the air right in front of Zuko's face. "It's about grinding your enemies down and down into dust." It doesn't take more than wrapping the Force around the piece of coal and slowly crushing the brittle material so that more and more small broken particles rain down. "We need to renegotiate our terms."

Zuko is confused. There are so many questions flitting around in his mind right now, they stumble over each other. "What is there to renegotiate?"

Obi-Wan folds his hands in his sleeves. "Negotiations are always a work of compromise", he says. "It's about give and take and finding a common ground in between were all parties are comfortable or at least as miserable as everyone else." That's how Padmé had put it once and Obi-Wan can't say that she's wrong. "There is something I must do here and I feel that by following you, I will find answers. I would like for you to keep showing me your world and in turn I will not hinder your fights with the Avatar. Those terms can stay the same. There's just something that I would like to add. I can help you. I'm not going to fight for you but I can heal people. I offer you that help. What do you say?"

This is probably the first moment that Obi-Wan truly sees the crown prince of the Fire Nation in front of him. It's easy to forget over the muddled mess he radiates into the Force and the hurt and the yelling but right now when he straightens his posture and looks at Obi-Wan like they are equals, then it's plain to see. "Then you want something in return. What do you want?"

Obi-Wan sends a subdued smile into the Force while his face continues to wear the negotiator's mask. "I want you to look at your world like you're seeing it for the first time. Continue to hunt Aang, keep going for that but while you do that, stop every now and then, forget everything you were taught and just look."

Zuko thinks about it. He's trying to find the catch except that there is none but the obvious. "Why do you keep calling the Avatar Aang?"

"Because that's his name, Prince Zuko." Obi-Wan doesn't hide his smile now. "I've found that most people are more willing to fight an unnamed foe rather than a person with a name and a face and a history... call it tactics but I will keep calling him by his name and remind you that you are hunting a child."

"You think I'm going to give up my destiny over such a petty thing?", Zuko's temperament flares up.

Obi-Wan shakes his head. "No. You're far too stubborn to stop your quest because of a name... So. Do we have new terms now?"

He still hesitates for a moment before he agrees. "Fine. We have new terms."

"Then, as we are on new terms now, might I offer advice as the resident healer?" Oh, Bant would have a field day if she saw him now. She had been his most trusted healer and far surpassed him in skill. Still, she would probably approve of what he's going to do.

Zuko just sighs. "Can I stop you?"

That elicits a small laugh from Obi-Wan. "I'm afraid not. I have been told that healers are the most stubborn, thick-headed and terrifying people to ignore." He turns serious. "I'm going to offer you a deal, Prince Zuko, as a show of good faith to our new terms and I suggest you take it."

"What kind of deal?", Zuko asks warily.

"Let your crew rest for a day or two." They need it. Caon needs some proper rest to get back on his feet and the rest of the crew could use a rest, too.

"But the Avatar-"

"You let the crew rest and I will help you find Aang the time after that", Obi-Wan shuts down Zuko's protest. "You know that I can feel where he is and I can lead you there."

"... Fine."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, erm, yeay? I'm gonna celebrate posting this chapter (however disjointed I feel it to be) by getting some nice and proper rest.
> 
> Anyway, I know that it is highly unnerving in the long term to be around people without being able to properly sozialize with them. Like, it's also unnerving to be on your own, especially for as long as Obi-Wan has been but I think it's even worse to not be alone but also not being able to really connect. So, yeah. A bit grumbly Obi-Wan there.  
> Also, meditation scene because I can't write Jedi without writing a meditation as it seems^^  
> And, well, it seems like Obi-Wan is starting to fill in some gaps in Zuko's teachings^^ also, I mean, I think Iroh would have tried to get some of those things drilled into Zuko in the last two and a half years but his own guilt, involvedness in the whole mess and Zuko's stubbornness and temper are a bad mix to get anywhere that way.  
> Why can Obi-Wan understand the language but not read it? I plan to explain it during the solstive but we'll see if I can fit that scene in there.  
> Erm... yeah. Disconnecting a firebender from the sun seems to be very bad for their health in general. And, well... we know that Jedi are empaths and fighting in a war even with mental shields... I'm pretty sure that there's a lot who tried to get away from it and when the only way out seemed to be to rip away that part of them... I mean, there's even a canon example although Meetra Surik did it under extreme circumstances.  
> Caon's story is somewhat inspired by that one tumblr post from that (former?) scout kid who was at a river, so a bear cub, remembered that mama bear has to be somewhere in the vicinity and climbed a tree. There was more but tumblr search is a gateway to hell that I am not braving right now and I forgot the rest of the story.  
> The story with Obi-Wan and the Tooka Infestion is all mine. I think? I can't remember at least if there was something years ago that inspired it.  
> Is Obi-Wan talking about negotiations inspired by that one vampire lady in Castlevania season 3 (Force, she was creepy and irgh and all, not my thing, really not but that speech about negotiations was well done)? maybe it is.  
> Also, yes, that's how in this Force ghost AU, Iroh gets to start the solstice episodes in that hot spring.


	9. The Winter Solstice: The Spirit World, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. This chapter... Well. It's the chapter of "Obi-Wan has trust issues", we're getting closer to some answers, hypothetical ghost physics (if you happen to know the Fire Emblem Rare Pair Exchange Server you might have heard me talking about it there. I now know why ghosts usually wear chains!), something always coming up and also: dragon!  
> Also, had to make this chapter in two parts. It's already at more than 6k and there's still stuff with Katara and after episode ending that I want to write about, so it would have been far too long for my tastes.
> 
> warning for mentionings etc of Order 66/Jedi genocide, brainwashing, _the_ Agni Kai (and I think that's all?)

### Chapter 9 – The Winter Solstice: The Spirit World, Part 1

Iroh sighs contentedly as he sinks deeper into the steaming water of the hot spring he has found. Obi-Wan eyes him with something like envy. "They had baths like this on Naboo", he says as he dips a hand into the water. It's... weird. He can tell that it's warm and it would be just the right temperature to sink in and relax but it's also inside what he considers to be himself and he doesn't really feel it, he just knows that it's warm. "Naboo was always famous for its plasma resources and the tradition of electing their monarchs but it was the hot baths I liked the most even though at the time I wasn't in the right space of mind to enjoy them." He sits down on the brim of the spring. "My Master was killed on Naboo, that's why."

"Then you should try to enjoy it now", Iroh suggests. "Can you?"

Obi-Wan strokes his beard while considering it. "I don't displace the water so it's inside me and that's just weird. Also... I'm not sure what will happen with my clothes if I take them off." He frowns. He hasn't really thought about it yet, but he's constantly anchoring himself to the ground he's 'standing' on. Otherwise... Well, the whole planet rotates around itself, he can feel it shift constantly, and it also rotates around its sun as far as he can tell and usually nothing in a galaxy ever stays on a fixed place, some things just move much slower than others. For a moment he considers stopping to anchor down to the ground but the thought of the planet rotating away or through him is enough to stop him. "I'm staying at mostly the right place relative to this world's surface because I subconsciously anchor myself to it. I doubt that Force ghost clothing can do that", he says loudly. "I'm not even sure it can exist away from me." He's curious but there's no one here who can tell him and... if it really just vanishes and he can't get it back, he's down a piece of clothing and whichever piece he loses, there will be scars visible and he's not sure he feels like delving into those topics.

With a roll of his shoulders Iroh relaxes some more. "What do you have to lose by trying?"

Obi-Wan looks down. Well, he can probably, in worst case, do without that little bit of cloth wrapped around his wrists. He doesn't need the protection from the sun any longer, after all. Carefully he unwraps it, folds it and lays it on the ground.

It just keeps lying there.

"Now, that was anticlimactic", Obi-Wan comments. He frowns at the piece of cloth in consternation. He would have expected it to do something. Anything. Not act like normal clothing.

"There is something different that has me puzzled." Iroh rests his arms on the spring's brim. "Why did my nephew suddenly decide that we all need some rest? It is unlike him."

Obi-Wan shrugs but doesn't hide his grin. "I might have used diplomacy, extortion and bribery on him. Was it worth it?"

"You would not be asking that if you were in this spring with me now."

"I don't doubt it." He sighs. He would very much prefer to be in that hot spring now. "I offered to track Aang for him after these rest days. I'm also the crew's healer now in exchange for Prince Zuko starting to take a closer look at this world and thinking about it." Actually... "Why did the ship not have a healer before? You're at sea a lot and also often enough a few days or more out from any supportive harbour. You should have had one already."

Iroh evades his gaze. "The first weeks after the Agni Kai we had a healer with us but he didn't follow us into banishment and I can't blame him for it. Those who crew the Wani are all people that followed me out of loyalty and trust and I didn't know any healers well enough then... So we made do." He lets out a long sigh. "We all learned bits and pieces during and after battles, mostly after."

"Yes, mostly after", Obi-Wan echoes. "I always tried to help in the sick bay after battles. Unless I was a patient myself which happened often enough."

"But you were a High General, were you not?", Iroh wonders. "How did you get wounded so often?"

Obi-Wan snorts. "Yes, I was but I also had what Cody called the Kenobi luck." He sobers quickly enough. "And I'm a Jedi first. I usually planned carefully beforehand and was available via comm during the battle but I was also in the midst of it because there were warriors among the separatists that only Jedi could take care of. Everything else would have been like... like sending civilians to take down the walls of Ba Sing Se from what I understand." He gesticulates uncomfortably. "I've led them into the seven Corellian Hells and got them out again and then I did what I could in the sick bay and I joined their funeral rites as well as I could. I protected them and they protected me as much as the situation allowed..." He trails off. Until Order 66, of course. Until Cody ordered to blast him off the cliffside. Until the 501st marched into the Temple.

"It was them?", Iroh asks and there's guilt and worry and some form of sorry in his Force presence now. "They were the soldiers who had your back and then betrayed you?"

Right, Obi-Wan thinks, I had started to mention that. "Yes, it was them but they had little say in the matter." He takes a deep breath. "None of them had much of a choice in anything. They were created to be soldiers for the Republic but the Sith, the... darker version of Jedi, got to them and while they were raised and trained to be soldiers... there are things that can be done to a mind to have a person immediately and without question comply with certain commands. Some could resist better than others but overall they had little choice. When the command came to kill all Jedi, they had to do as ordered. I know this. I stole the data, so I know this but still... I think... I just thought that they could have. Went through the hells together, after all, so I thought... I know that some were able to resist the kill-command so why not them, right?" Obi-Wan swallows around the lump in his throat. He had not intended to tell that much. "Yes, it was them, among others. But it was also the common people we had served and protected and died for who cheered at our deaths. It was the senators and kings and governors who had supported us but then bowed to the Emperor who commanded our genocide. It was", Anakin, "Jedi who joined the dark side and helped to hunt those of us who didn't."

"They will not betray me", Iroh says, his trust sturdy as beskar. "My crew has not been mindbent and they would not betray me."

Obi-Wan nods. "It's a different situation, true. But what about Prince Zuko? Can you say that he would choose you over the Fire Nation? If he was pushed to the crossroads of his destiny, are you sure that he would not return to the Fire Lord?" He takes a few calming breaths. "The soldiers had been, how did you say it, mindbent. Everyone else wasn't. If Huan's wife was threatened... what would she do? Tao's family? Caon's mother?"

It's the first time that Iroh looks at him with open concern. "I do not know how they will choose and act", he says after careful consideration, "and I do not need to know. I choose to trust them regardless. All of them. I choose to trust that they will make the right decisions and that I can let them help me as much as they let me help them." Iroh smiles gently. "Sometimes trust may hurt like a firebender's flames but if you close yourself off from it completely, you will go cold."

That sounds like something Master Yoda would have said. "I suppose so." Obi-Wan nods his head since he can't bow when seated. "I'll consider your wisdom, Iroh."

"Uncle! It's time to leave!"

Obi-Wan chuckles. "He does have timing, doesn't he?"

"Where are you? Uncle Iroh!"

"That he does", Iroh agrees. Louder he yells: "Over here!"

Zuko finds them immediately now. He's radiating excitement. "Uncle, Ben! I've picked up the Avatar's trail again. We're closing in and I don't want to lose him."

"You look tired, Prince Zuko", Iroh comments after measuring his nephew up and down. "Why don't you join me in these hot springs and soak away your troubles?"

"My troubles cannot be soaked away!", Zuko yells as Obi-Wan checks on him. He's indeed tired. "It's time to go!"

Obi-Wan releases his exasperation into the Force. "You should take your uncle's advice", he says. "I promised I would help you find Aang again and he's not far." He checks again to be sure. No. Aang isn't that far. It'll take them a bit to catch up but it's manageable.

"Then we should leave now! Get out of the water!"

"Please", Obi-Wan adds and this time it's on purpose. "And we don't have to hurry. Aang's sky bison needs rest, your ship doesn't. We'll catch up soon enough."

"Come", Iroh invites Zuko into the spring again. "The temperature's just right. I heated it myself." There's a flurry of heat from Iroh's nose and new steam rises from the water.

Zuko, not surprisingly, is not tempted. Ah, young people. Always on the move. "Enough! We're leaving!"

"Very well." With a shrug and little care Iroh rises from the water. Zuko immediately flinches and turns away. Obi-Wan... Growing up with many people in close quarters and especially doing a lot of stuff in groups as younglings, it left you without much of a reflex to look away in these kinds of situations. So he's still looking as Iroh rises from the water and when he notices Zuko's reaction which would probably have been the appropriate one in Fire Nation culture – it's hard to tell with Zuko and what Obi-Wan can guess of his past – it would be awkward to turn away.

So he looks at Iroh for the short, far too long moment before Zuko speaks up again. He's sturdy, still, and Obi-Wan has no doubt that beneath the softened outer layer he's in fighting form. Scarred, too. Different kinds of scars than Obi-Wan carries, of course, but lots that are similar, too. Habitually, he starts to catalogue what he can see. Long, thin cuts from sharp blades, something which looks like lightning that wrapped around an arm. Something that Obi-Wan identifies as cauterized wounds and he remembers that Iroh is a firebender, so he can guess where the heat for cauterizing those wounds came from. There's no blaster scars, of course. No marks from lightsabers, of course. But overall, it's eerily similar to himself...

"On second thought, why don't you take another few minutes?", Zuko finishes the short, far too long moment. He pointedly looks at Obi-Wan as he turns back although Iroh is already sinking back into the hot waters. "But be back at the ship in a half-hour or I'm leaving without you!"

A sigh escapes him. "If I recall correctly, our deal set the end of the rest days at sundown. We'll be back in time before then, so we can start back on Aang's trail with the setting sun." Obi-Wan raises his hand as he feels Zuko's temper flare back up to stop him from yelling before he can start. "Please don't yell at me, Prince Zuko. Constant yelling is not a sign of a good leader and it's usually not the most efficient way to have people cooperate." Zuko huffs a breath. "Also, do you really want to go back on our deal?"

"Fine", Zuko answers with his signature glare. "It's not that much longer than a half-hour anyway."

"Wonderful."

"Are you sure that you do not want to relax a little, Prince Zuko?", Iroh calls after his nephew who is already halfway off the hot spring clearing.

"You should", Obi-Wan adds. The next moment he realizes that that was the wrong thing to say. Zuko closes off completely. Right, he reminds himself, not too much pushing. "You know what? I can't enjoy these hot springs either, so why don't you show me your maps and how to read them while I track Aang? Then we can already plot the course for later."

Iroh nods secretively while Zuko's Force presence relaxes a little again. Not good but better. "Follow me then." He hesitates. "Please."

Obi-Wan smiles. "Of course, Prince Zuko. I'm afraid I don't remember the way back." He can still find the ship, of course, since he's familiar enough with most of the crew now, but it can't hurt to respond in kind.

"So that's the sign for Fire Nation?", Obi-Wan asks as he points to a bunch of elegant ink strokes on Zuko's map. "I see. Then your writing system is completely different in general. One sign for one word... well, it saves space on your map."

Zuko frowns in annoyance while he and Lieutenant Jee are calculating their course through what seems to be a nasty set of reefs. "How else would you write it?"

"I grew up with the Aurebesh system", Obi-Wan says while still keeping a mental feeler out for Aang's location. "It uses only thirty-four signs, well, and ignored eight of them most of the time. Each sign corresponds to a sound or letter from older writing systems and you write down words by stringing those signs to each other. By the way, Aang hasn't moved in a while. I'm pretty sure they have settled in for the night."

"Good." Zuko is still frowning. "But how do you get anything written like that? A word like, like... Firebending has to use so many signs!"

Obi-Wan spells it out in his head. "Yes, Firebending would use eleven signs in Aurebesh whereas I guess that in your writing system it's one sign, maybe two?" 

"Two", Lieutenant Jee nods, brows still furrowed at the reefs and something which Obi-Wan thinks are tidal charts. "The signs for Fire and for Bending." He paints the signs on the table with his index finger.

Obi-Wan follows his movements. The sign for fire isn't that complex, he can probably repeat it after seeing it twice or thrice. It even looks a little like a fire. The bending one on the other hand... He's sure that it'll take him a while to remember how to write it correctly and then also be able to apply it properly in writing, should there ever be a need. "I think I know why we use mostly Aurebesh apart from tradition. Our signs don't grow that complex. The only thing you have to remember is how a word is spelled. Ben, for example, would be Besh, Esk and Nern." He writes it in the air above the table. "I guess it's a little like remembering how to set the strokes for your signs and mostly things are spelled the way they're pro-, well, I mean, there are exceptions... actually, there are quite a few exceptions to spelling words like they're pronounced, especially with all those loan words from other languages..." He trails off.

"It sounds like a stupid system", Zuko comments.

"Believe me, when I had to read Anakin's essays on g- Republic history, I thought the same. Sometimes I had to read the words out loud to figure out what he meant." That, amidst other things, had been one of the greatest perks of Anakin's Knighting. No more essays. "But I don't want to imagine what he would have done with your writing system." 

"Then he's an idiot." Suddenly, Zuko's Force presence darkens. "You compared me to someone who can't even write?"

Oh. Oh, he had done that, hadn't he? "I compared your temper which you are wonderfully proving to be similar once again", Obi-Wan snipes back. "As for Anakin's writing troubles, he didn't have palace tutors to teach him. He was a slave until he was freed at nine years old. Could you write any better if you had been in his position?"

Lieutenant Jee uses this moment to pointedly clear his throat. "We won't be able to pass that reef before morning with the rising tide", he says. "At this time of year the low tide is too low for the Wani to make it through even the better available passages in the reef."

"Then find a faster-", he begins to yell before he meets Obi-Wan's gaze. Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. "Is there a faster course?", Zuko asks more calmly.

Looking up in surprise, Lieutenant Jee blinks, then blinks again. Obi-Wan can feel his confusion about Zuko's fast change of tone. "No. We could try to go around but that will put us very close to Fire Nation waters... and this is still the command area of Commander Zhao."

Zuko scoffs derisively. "And Commander Zhao would not hesitate to attack this ship as soon as he can justify it." He glares at the tidal charts. "Very well. I'm not letting Commander Zhao near the Avatar, so we wait for the tides to rise in the morning... Where is Uncle? He should be here by now." Not waiting for an answer, Zuko stomps away from the helm, his maps still lying about on one of Iroh's Pai Sho tables.

Lieutenant Jee eyes Obi-Wan, Obi-Wan looks back. "What are your intentions here, Mister Ben Kenobi?", he asks harshly. "You come from somewhere far, far away and I don't believe for a minute that it's those lands beyond the Western Isles. You make good with my crew. You make good with our general. And now you... you start to influence the Crown Prince? Why should I not consider you a threat?"

He calmly and as non-threateningly as possible folds his hands in front of his body while also straightening his posture. He doesn't want to escalate things but there's also no need to cower. "Because I am no threat." And because Lieutenant Jee is not a person who will accept certain points of views or conveniently omitted details, Obi-Wan adds: "I could be, of course. I'm not saying that I can't be dangerous or that I'm unable to kill you, your crew, Iroh and Prince Zuko... probably not all at once. I could be a threat, yes." He lets that sink in. "But I don't intend to. I am here because I feel I need to be here. No other reason."

He is being sized up again. Lieutenant Jee thinks about his words, then nods. "Good. I can work with that." He nods again, more to himself, before he turns his gaze back to Obi-Wan. "But from now on keep the bullshit half-truths reserved for people like Commander Zhao."

Obi-Wan raises his chin just that little bit in silent challenge. "And what then?", he asks. "What happens the next time that Commander Zhao interrogates all of you?"

"He-"

"I don't know what he did. I guess that he threatened your families in the mainland." At least that's what the Hutts and the Empire loved to do and it always, mostly always, worked. He can feel that he's guessed correctly. Obi-Wan lets out a long breath. "You and the crew already sold me out to Zhao once and I understand. Protecting your families is more important than protecting a stranger. But there are things I have to protect, too." And Iroh and Zuko are fast becoming two of those he has to protect. Two of those he wants to protect. Just like Aang, Katara and Sokka.

Lieutenant Jee nods. "I respect that, so let me be blunt one last time before we drop the topic. If you do not want to become part of the family here and don't want to trust us, why did you cosy up with everyone?"

"I..." Actually, Obi-Wan isn't sure how to answer that. It's like Lieutenant Jee has listened to his conversation with Iroh and is now echoing his opinion albeit not his words. "Alright, I choose to trust you." Force knows, he's built sturdier friendships from weirder starts, so... "I am going to trust you and, Force be with us, that I'm not making a mistake here because if a murdering lunatic like Zhao- Iroh!" There's a sudden spike of surprise-anger-trouble around Iroh's Force presence. He's shouldn't be that attuned to him yet... ah. No. It's not that he's close enough to Iroh through the Force already to notice all that so easily. There's a growing but not yet deadly danger growing around him which his subconscious picked up on. "There's some danger in his vicinity. Force, I wish you were Jedi. It would be much easier to sense." He can't make out much. Danger, yes, also a certain resignation and worry on Iroh's part. Maybe.  
He reaches further into the Force-

-and finds himself in the cockpit of an X-Wing. The Force is odd around him. Familiar because it's the same Force that he has known for decades but also strange... The Force hasn't changed but he has and it's unsettling and even scaring him if he allows himself to think about it more. So he doesn't and instead tries to figure out what the heck is going on.

He's with Luke. That's good. So they made it off the Death Star. He can't feel his body, not even in the strange way in that other world, that he's almost gotten used to. Not good. There's shooting turbolaser batteries, TIEs of all varieties and danger, so much danger all around them. Not good either. Luke flies evasive manoeuvres and Obi-Wan, despite not even really having any body awareness right now, feels his stomach lurch. "Flying is for droids", he mutters but there's no words because there's no mouth. Not good. Vader is in one of those TIEs. Bad. Worse. Vader is shooting down the other X-Wings. Very bad.

Oh kriffing hells!, he shouts silently into the Force. This is the Death Star equator. Luke is trying to... he's got no idea, actually. This is... well, this is going about as well as his usual Clone Wars mission with Anakin had gone. Skywalkers... Except that Luke... "Use the Force, Luke", he speaks into the Force and prays that the boy can hear him. "Let go. Let the Force guide your movements." It's one of the first things any Jedi learns and, oh, how Obi-Wan wishes he could have had more time with Luke before facing Vader.

Luke is confused, doubtful. Of course he is. He wasn't raised Jedi. He wasn't raised where everyone knew at least a little about what the Force allowed Jedi to do. He wasn't raised _when_ everyone knew at least a little. "Trust me, Luke-

\- Trust the Force."

And he's gone again. Obi-Wan bites down an unnerved sigh. All of this would be much easier if at least someone could explain something to him. He looks around to figure out where he is. There's a faint glowing line at the horizon where the sun has not yet risen. Around him... The earth is black not just from the lack of viable light but also from ashes. A faint breeze whirls the finer ash up and around him. He sneezes. There's a carved statue-

He sneezed. Obi-Wan blinks in confusion. He's a... Wait a moment. He moves his left foot and puts it down again. No sinking into the earth. No floating. He's... he touches the ground with his hands. He can feel the mix of earth and ashes running through his fingers. It's terrible because from the charred remains of tree stumps he can guess that his once has been a great forest, but he can feel! The breeze on his skin. The earth beneath his fingers. Gravity. He would never have guessed that he would miss gravity this much.

Obi-Wan laughs. It's exhilaration and surprise and it's wonderful. He can feel. Then his stomach rumbles. Well, perks of being alive?

Someone groans. Obi-Wan whirls around and sees Aang propping himself up from the ground with his glider. "Sokka!", he comes fully awake and stumbles to his feet. "Oh. It's you." He sounds depressed.

"I'll try not to take that to heart", Obi-Wan answers amusedly. He can feel. It's... he's alive? He doesn't know how but currently this outweighs everything. "What about Sokka?" He reaches out into the Force and... there's nothing. "Where is Sokka?"

Aang slumps down. "I failed."

Obi-Wan sits down cross-legged in front of him. "Aang, I'm not sure why I am here but maybe I can help if you tell me what happened."

So Aang starts talking. He stumbles a lot in the beginning about this burnt down forest and how they were invited to Senlin village and that he was told about the Avatar being the Spirit Bridge between worlds. He talks about the angry spirit that keeps attacking Senlin village at night and that it didn't listen but took Sokka instead and he tried and he failed. He should be the Spirit Bridge. He should know. But he failed. And he should be better.

Obi-Wan tries to drown the thoughts of an angry Anakin who would become frustrated with himself just like this. An angry Anakin who would accuse him of being jealous and holding him back. An angry Anakin who used words to wound as viciously as with a lightsaber.

"I'm afraid I don't know what to do either. The Spirit World is still a mystery to me", Obi-Wan admits instead. "But if the spirit Hei Bai only comes at night, then that means that we have a full day to figure out what to do. So we should return to the village. You need to tell Katara that Sokka is missing and I", he gets up and fights the dizzy moment, "need to eat. Kriffing hells, I feel like I haven't eaten in months."

Senlin village is a small collection of wooden houses surrounded by an earthen wall. It holds some resemblance to the Water Tribe village except that it's better of. For now. The Fire Nation hasn't come here yet.

Katara is sitting in the wall's opening and the fear-lonely-despair-sadness in her Force presence lies around her like a heavy cloak that keeps her head down. There's an old man next to her who's trying to comfort her. Aang's steps get slower and heavier.

"Go on, Aang. Tell her and then we start planning."

So Aang walks up to her, shoulders low, head lower. "Katara? Katara, I lost him."

She doesn't look up. She doesn't even react.

"Hello? Who goes there?", the old man notices them. No. He's only looking at Obi-Wan.

Now Katara also looks up. "Ben?", she asks. Confusion-lonely-sadness. "What are you doing here? Where's Aang?"

Obi-Wan cocks his head. "I've made a little trip again, as it seems and Aang is... you can't see him?"

"What?", Aang whirls around. "What do you- I'm blue! I can see through my fingers! Oh no, oh no, am I a ghost now, too?"

"What do you mean, I can't see him?", Katara asks.

This is utterly confusing. "I don't think you can become a ghost, Aang." Obi-Wan massages the bridge of his nose. "Nothing about this makes sense and-", his stomach rumbles again, "I really need something to eat now before I can even begin to make sense of this. Katara, please tell me that you still have supplies."

"We don't have time to eat!", Aang flares up. "Sokka is gone and we need to find him!"

"But where's Sokka? I don't understand." Katara's hand goes to her neck, then sinks when she doesn't find something. Obi-Wan wonders what that is about but he has other things to think about now.

"Aang, we do have time to eat unless you want me to keel over from suddenly no longer being a ghost. I'd rather not, thank you." Then he turns to Katara. "He lost Sokka and I can't find him either so it's probably something about the Spirit World. I don't understand it either, nor do I know why I am here. Like this. Can I get some food now? Please?" Force, he's hungry. He could probably keep going if he really had to, but he'd rather just get something to eat and then start thinking.

The first bite is bliss. Obi-Wan's not sure how much he can actually stomach right now, so he keeps it simple. Still. It feels like the most perfect food he's ever had. And the first sip of water? Force's sake. Wonderful.

Then he's being nudged by the sky bison who sniffs at him in confusion and lets out a low whine when Aang is nowhere to be seen.

"You can't see me either, Appa, buddy, right?", Aang says, voice heavy.

Obi-Wan absent-mindedly pets Appa's giant head. The fur is so soft although the smell takes some getting used to. "It seems that I am the only one right now, who can see you. Although I don't understand why you see yourself as blue and transparent and I see you just like I see Katara."

Katara shakes her head. "This is so weird."

"Hmmm", Obi-Wan hums in agreement between bites. "It's just as weird as anything that happened to me since I came here. I just can't make sense of anything yet." He puts the bread down. Eating too much right now might just upset his stomach and he doesn't want to take chances with that.

"I'll figure this out, I promise", Aang mumbles into his glider staff.

"Aang promises to figure this out", Obi-Wan relays. "And I agree. You will figure this out, Aang, but you don't have to do it alone. You have Katara and me here, even though I have to relay everything you say to her."

Aang is still hunched over but there's some hope back in his eyes. Obi-Wan can work with that. "But I don't know anything. There's no one who can teach me how to do this Avatar stuff. Like, they said, I'm the bridge between worlds? I didn't know that and I don't know what I have to do and now Sokka is gone and I'm stuck and-"

"Breathe, Aang", Obi-Wan interrupts him before the boy can work himself into a full panic. "The Force tends to work in mysterious ways but you're not alone in this. We are connected, aren't we? So breathe with me." He shifts his legs into a meditative position, relaxes his shoulders and rests his hands on his thighs. Obi-Wan makes sure to breathe loud enough so that Aang can easily fall into rhythm with him. He sends a short look to Katara and she nods. "That's better. Let's think about what we know. The Avatar is the Spirit Bridge, someone who connects the Spirit World with this one. Did I understand that correctly?"

Katara and Aang nod.

"And you and I are connected in a way. Probably because you... You connect worlds, that's why we are connected. There is some connection between bending, the spirits and the Force and when I died and became a Force ghost... I don't know." Obi-Wan frowns. "But whenever we came into contact, my connection to here became stronger. At the South Pole it was just my connection to the Force but at the Southern Air Temple... when I touched your shoulder, I had a body as long as we were in contact." Such things rarely work one way, he remembers. "Maybe it also works the other way around." Obi-Wan holds out his hand.

Aang reaches right through it. "So...?"

Obi-Wan looks at Katara. "Can you see him now?"

"No." She shakes her head. "Still nothing."

"These things can't ever be easy, can they?", Obi-Wan sighs. He tenses. "Something's coming. It's... powerful. Maybe dangerous."

Katara jumps to her feet. "The Hei Bai again? I thought the spirit only comes at night!"

Obi-Wan also gets up, albeit slower. These old joints aren't what they were and he still feels weak. "I don't know. I've never met the Hei Bai so how would I recognize its spirit?"

"Maybe it's Sokka!" Aang runs towards the village gate.

There's a roar, like a rancor calling through the jungles of Dathomir. Katara doesn't even flinch. "I guess you didn't hear that roar right now?", Obi-Wan asks. She shakes her head. "Then it's another spirit thing.

What comes out of the forest's darkness is a blue glowing, transparent snake-like creature. Horns, mane, wings...

Aang makes a hasty retreat but the dragon – and what else could it be – follows. It doesn't attack. It also doesn't feel like it's going to attack or poses any danger to Aang.

"What are you looking at?", Katara asks. "What is happening?"

"Dragon. I think there's a dragon spirit talking with Aang now." It's beautiful, dangerous but beautiful and to his Force senses it is as bright as the Force itself. There are similarities to the krayt dragons of Tatooine but they are fleeting and compared to the ravenous hunger-territory-mating-mine of the krayt dragons, it's not much of a comparison at all. "It's beautiful."

"You're Avatar Roku's animal guide!", Aang exclaims in this moment. "Like Appa is to me!"

Obi-Wan relays it to Katara and she brightens up with hope. "Maybe it knows where Sokka is?"

"Ben!", Aang calls out. "Fang can take me to Avatar Roku! And he wants to talk to you!"

He breathes in deeply. "Very well. Katara, please stay back for a moment. Apparently, the dragon wants to talk to me."

"But I'm not weak!", she protests.

Obi-Wan can't help the smile. "No one said that you are and this is not about weakness. It just would be rude to approach Fang without being invited, wouldn't it?"

She nods although there is a defiant curl to her mouth. It's good enough for now.

Taking another breath he carefully approaches the dragon without sudden movements and his hands in plain sight. Once he's at a comfortable distance, he bows as though he's standing in front of the Jedi Orders High Council.

The dragon returns the bow. One of his feelers moves towards Obi-Wan. When it connects, there's someone prodding at his mental shields. He nudges back. The someone feels like the dragon and it nudges at his shields again, insistent but gently, so Obi-Wan lowers them a bit. He receives an image of himself in his mind and a confused tug.

"I'm called Ben", he answers, "and I'm a Jedi Master. I don't mean any harm."

The dragon sniffs at his clothes and hair, then huffs a spirit cloud of smoke. Another image appears, flames, the ocean, mountains, clouds running with the wind. More confusion.

Obi-Wan shakes his head. "I'm not a bender."

More confusion, a view of the world from above. An image of a house.

"My home isn't here." He sends back an image of the Jedi-Temple before the destruction. Then another of the planet of Coruscant along with a star map. "It's far away from here, I think." He shows Coruscant again but this time sends the view of the world he's seen from Fang back along with it, separated by an empty void between them.

Fang shows him an image of himself turning back and forth at a crossroads.

He chuckles. "Yes, I think I'm a bit lost."

Curling around Aang and Obi-Wan, the dragon sends another image of the two of them and a rope between them.

Obi-Wan shakes his head. "I don't know. I shouldn't even be here but somehow I got connected to Aang and the Spirit World. Do you know anything about that?"

Dragon snouts, Obi-Wan finds out, feel like fire and flame except that this fire isn't to hurt. It feels like the sun during a morning meditation. It also tickles. Fang sends an image of the sun.

"The sun?", Obi-Wan asks to make sure he understood that correctly. Fang sends the image again with a nodding person. "I don't understand. What about the sun?"

Fang huffs an annoyed breath. This time the sun is accompanied by a paper roll and a feeling of good-right.

"I'm sorry, Fang, I still don't understand." Obi-Wan takes a step back to disrupt the contact between him and Fang. "My questions can wait. I am honoured to have made your acquaintance and I would love to talk more another time but right now Aang needs your guidance more than I do." He bows deeply.

Fang huffs an annoyed breath and sends a last image of the two of them sitting comfortably and talking, before he bows as well. Then the dragon turns back to Aang and nudges him forwards with his snout.

"You'll take me to Roku?" Aang reverently touches the dragon's back. There's a flash of communication between them. "We'll go back here, right?" Another flash of communication. "Okay. Then take me to Roku."

The dragon unfurls his form as soon as Aang has climbed onto his back. Its wings flap gusts of winds towards Obi-Wan who, to little surprise, notices that only he is affected by it. The leaves on the ground stay where they are.

"They're gone now, aren't they?", Katara approaches.

"Yes", Obi-Wan confirms as he straightens out his tunics and hair. "Fang will take Aang to see Avatar Roku. He should be able to help Aang figure out how to be the Avatar." He hopes so, at least.

"And what do we do until he's back?"

Obi-Wan shrugs. "You wouldn't happen to know how to play Pai Sho?"

"Dad wanted to teach me."

But he didn't get to do it, Obi-Wan hears her not-say. He doesn't ask. "Then I guess I will get used to having a body again. I hope I haven't gotten too rusty." He stretches. Carefully. It was strange to be a ghost but it's even stranger to be back in a body and he would prefer not to start this, whatever it is, by tearing something. "Do you think anyone here will have a sword?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have actually no idea what happened here. I kinda just started writing and it went here and there and Iroh wasn't supposed to find out about the whole Order 66 and clone brainwashing stuff yet and, I mean, I'm pretty sure that Obi-Wan is bisexual but I didn't exactly intend for him to stare at Iroh except he kinda did that and yes...   
> Like, I tried to write that hot spring and suddenly they were talking physics (and I was talking physics and kinda had to double check and, you know, everything moves a lot in space) and I really wanted to do the cothing thing except that Obi-Wan who is notorious for losing his cloaks across the galaxy (I mean, does he ever pick them up again after shedding them dramatically before a fight?), forgot about that piece of cloth he had lying there (it vanished btw as soon as his attention was elsewhere) so I couldn't write about it.  
> But I also really liked writing the spring and later Jee because Obi-Wan has given advice left and right and, as is usual, forgot his own stuff over it, so that I get to write his trust issues (and, let's be real, those started before Anakin, the clones and Order 66 but he's not aware of that. yet) and also have him get somewhere with healing. I mean. it's a start.  
> Anyway, I see Iroh as not bodyshy at all. I think the Fire Nation in general has little problem with bare torsos, especially for men (see traditional Agni Kai get-up), but as soon as it goes below the waistline and above the knees... yeah. no. So Iroh is a bit more relaxed than the average Fire Nation citizen whereas Zuko is much more uptight, mostly because his father is an asshole and he himself hides a lot beneath his clothes and, yeah. Obi-Wan on the other hand... Well, Jedi are raised in youngling clans and it looks like those clans do about everything together in the beginning. you know, help each other, build a sense of unity etc. So even tho Jedi are a bit strange to outsiders, they are pretty open around each other, especially with regards to nudity. I mean. There's whole species who don't wear much wrt cothing, so...  
> Also. I'm not sure if there will be something romantic or sexual between Iroh. They aren't telling. But if it happens, Zuko will probably jump from the next cliff because he can survive one uncle like this, not two.  
> Oh right. AtlA seems to use the chinese writing system (is there an official sign for bending btw?). Star Wars has numerous fictional alphabets but Basic, the language that is used in Star Wars is supposed to be exactly English (and different English accents denote different Star Wars accents). That's why Firebending in Obi-Wan's mind has eleven letters. Also, am I bashing English pronounciation/spelling troubles a bit? Maybe.  
> Also headcanon that Anakin's writing isn't great because he grew up in Hutt Space, so his first language and Alphabet is Huttese and he was probably never formally taught before the Jedi. So. There's troubles.  
> What happened with Lieutenant Jee? I have no idea. He just suddenly wanted space and I really didn't want to discuss that.  
> Why is Obi-Wan back in Star Wars for a moment? Will be explained. Not sure when but it will be explained. Why is he back in a body and alive? Will also be explained and it's planned for the Fire Temple.  
> I did not plan for Fang and Obi-Wan to talk but I'm kinda glad they did? Cause Fang is cute. What does Fang mean with the sun? That's gonna be coming in the Fire Temple^^  
> Next chapter: Spirit World, Part 2. Expect lots of Obi-Wan and Katara, the stuff with Hei Bai and some more^^


	10. The Winter Solstice: The Spirit World, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, this was interesting with real world deadlines, a little writer's block and focus elsewhere. I'd like to partially blame finally watching The Mandalorian for that. But, hey, then I met a new group of writers, we talked and someone came up with the fact that Sokka is probably Force sensitive and, well, it kind of makes sense, doesn't it? And then brain finally started cooperating on this story again.
> 
> warnings for canon-typical misogyny (some of that internalized), emotional mess Obi-Wan, some flashback-ish moments, the topic of child soldiers

### Chapter 10 – The Winter Solstice: The Spirit World, Part 2

No one in Senlin village seems to have a sword, so Obi-Wan is stuck with a stick. He could, of course, do his sequences empty-handed and he needs to practice them in the weaponless form again but he'd rather first be sure that he still knows how to hold a sword and how to move it. It's doubtful that he could have forgotten it but he wants to be sure.

Obi-Wan swings the stick around to test it. It's a bit too short, a bit too thin and while it is light enough to act as a stand-in for a lightsaber, it doesn't hum with energy and there's no crystals that vibrate and sing with the Force while powering the blade. Well, for now the bamboo, as they call it, has to do.

Moving into the opening stance of Shii-cho's first sequence while having an actual body is so familiar that he needs to breathe for a moment to centre himself again. He hasn't done this properly in years. At first, in his exile, he still trained diligently but later on... he didn't drop lightsaber training completely, he couldn't, but what would have been the point? He's no longer that Jedi Master who's always being sent on missions, he's no longer an active participant in the war. He just has to watch over Luke and try not to kriff that up like everything else.

He exhales and moves. It's not about getting the form perfectly correct – even though Master Giiett and Master Drallig would have his hide for this – it's about feeling that the instincts are still there. That he can still do it. Even if he's holding a stick of some sort of wood and there's no training droid to fire shots at him. He just moves and his movements flow along the currents of the Force and the Force's currents flow along his movements. There's no thinking about what to do, no questions. It's just movement and the Force and himself. In and out. Block, parry, strike. It's a rhythm as familiar as his own heartbeat.

He's at peace.

Katara is watching him. Actually, a lot of the villagers are watching, too, at least those that don't have more important duties to attend to right now. He tries not to dwell on it. During the war, Anakin, Ahsoka and him had also usually been watched while training. "Do you want to learn a bit?", Obi-Wan invites her. Maybe it can help take her mind off the fact that her brother is missing.

"I don't have a sword."

Obi-Wan shrugs. "These forms can also be done without a weapon." He puts the bamboo stick down next to her. "You're travelling with Aang and I can feel that it's going to become a more dangerous journey than it already is."

There's a spike of anger in her Force presence before she gets up and scowls at him angrily. "I can defend myself! I'm the la-" She stops and claps her hands over her mouth. Katara lets out an angry exhale, then proceeds more calmly. "I can fight."

"I never said you can't. It was merely an invitation to practice and learn more." Had he been like this when he was younger? Obi-Wan thinks back and, yes, he had been brash as a teenager, too. He had also run headlong into danger at every possibility and he had to learn things the hard way often enough. Could Katara do the same? He looks at her. Yes, she probably could. But maybe she doesn't have to. "Katara", he continues softly, "I have been fighting my whole life and most of what I've learned I've had to learn by blood and wounds and death. I have no doubt that you can do the same and come out the other end, but it can't hurt to listen to your elders once in a while, can it?"

She's still looking up at him and there's still anger but now it's not directed at him. "I was never taught", she mumbles finally, still keeping eye contact. Katara would have done well among the Mandalorians, Obi-Wan thinks. "Only the men get to fight with weapons."

Obi-Wan raises one eyebrow. "There were no men in your village except for Sokka."

"I know!" Katara stomps on the ground. "The men all went to fight the Fire Nation with the Earth Kingdom and they've been gone for two years and they just left us!" He has a feeling that it's a bit more personal than that but he doesn't want to rub salt into the wound. "And Sokka has had to hunt for all of us because my wa-" She claps her hands over her mouth again. It's too late because Obi-Wan has already seen what she's trying to hide. With her wild gestures and anger, the water in a cup behind her had risen and splashed all around.

"You're a waterbender", he says quietly. "Wait a moment. Then you whipped me with that water on Prince Zuko's ship?"

Suddenly her defiant posture turns into a seemingly innocent one. "It was an accident? No one ever taught me how to waterbend either."

Obi-Wan remembers how the village eldest had talked about the raids and decides that he better not ask. "Do you want to learn how to wield a weapon?"

She hesitates. "I... I don't know. I want to but..." Katara's voice trails off.

Obi-Wan has a few ideas why she hesitates but he doesn't know for certain and he doesn't want to assume too much. "We could start with weaponless basics", he suggests.

Katara, as it turns out, takes to learning weaponless basics like any teen given the chance to throw punches while even being encouraged to do so. Obi-Wan makes sure to correct her stance and her punch movements so that, should she punch anything harder than air, she would not hurt her arms. "Good. Now stretch and cool down a bit. We're taking a break here."

"I can still keep going", she protests but stretches her legs and arms.

Obi-Wan sighs. "You can't rush these things. If we continue like this, you will have sore muscles tomorrow that will make you unable to walk and you are still on the run, are you not?"

"But how would Prince Zuko know where we are?"

"Well", Obi-Wan clears his throat, "I more or less told him."

"You what?!", Katara yells.

"We came to an agreement in that-"

She doesn't let him finish. "You're working with the Fire Nation now?" Katara pronounces it like 'enemy'.

"I'm working with Prince Zuko", Obi-Wan corrects her. "There is a difference although I'm sure he's not aware of that yet." He finishes his cooldown stretches in time with Katara.

She has narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean by that?"

Another sigh works its way up his throat. "I mean that Prince Zuko is not the Fire Nation. Everything else... it's not my story to tell. Katara, he's not a bad person."

"He burned down Kyoshi village!"

This time Obi-Wan sighs out loud. "I know. I saw."

"Then how can you defend him?" She crosses her arms.

"Because I know what he can become." Obi-Wan sits down. "He reminds me of a boy I trained." He thinks of a night of nightmares, of Zuko hugging his knees close to his body and how he told him of the slave collar. "He also reminds me of myself when I was younger", Obi-Wan amends his statement. "I could have turned out just like him. I know what it's like to be lost and want to go home. I know what it's like to have that one sliver of hope that you can go back home and what you're willing to do for that." He thinks back to Bandomeer and Qui-Gon and that mine shaft trap. "Now I can't help but wonder if with the right guidance, Prince Zuko, might turn out like I did..."

Katara doesn't say anything for a while, then she snorts derisively. "Pah. He's Fire Nation."

"And that automatically makes him an enemy?" Obi-Wan shakes his head. "It's never that easy. Although I agree that he's your enemy at the moment, that doesn't mean that he has to be your enemy tomorrow. Just... think about that."

"Sure", she says and her tone makes clear that she means the exact opposite.

Obi-Wan knows her kind of stubbornness well enough to know that it won't help to push his point. "Then this is the perfect moment to meditate."

"Meditate", Katara echoes blandly. "You mean, sit around, close your eyes and do nothing?"

Obi-Wan shrugs. "It's sitting around, yes, it usually involves closed eyes, yes, but it's not doing nothing. I am thinking, listening to the Force and resting. Those are all important things to do, especially to rest."

Katara gives it a couple thoughts, he can feel them whirring in her mind like cogs in an old type of machine. "Aang does it and it seems to help him with his bending. Can you show me?"

It's still strange that he can pat the ground next to him. It hasn't been that long since his death but being alive is now rather unfamiliar. "Sit down. Close your eyes. Breathe." He glances through lowered lashes to see whether she follows his advice. Katara may not be his Padawan but since he's teaching her right now, he should see to it that he teaches her properly. "As a Jedi, when I meditate, I quiet my own mind to listen to the Force. I think Aang does something rather similar but to him it's not the Force and instead what you consider elements."

Katara cracks open one eye. "I am supposed to listen to the water?"

"Am I a bender?", Obi-Wan asks back. "What do you do when the water bends itself for you?" A long, uncomfortable silence follows. "Katara?"

"It doesn't bend itself for me. I tell the water what to do and it follows." More quietly, she adds: "Sometimes." Obi-Wan feels a cold shiver run down his spine. "Other times it just reacts when I'm angry or desperate."

He closes his eyes and breathes to ground himself. Maybe the same principles don't apply to the elements here as they do to the Force where he comes from but if this were the Force... then what Katara does would be on the darker side of Force use. "Does it feel right?", he asks.

"What?"

"Does it feel right to force the water to your will? Does it feel right to you the way you bend?", Obi-Wan clarifies.

Katara thinks. Obi-Wan has a feeling that she doesn't often sit down and actually gets to think about her actions. She just does what needs doing and he can relate to that. He had to live like that long enough as well. "Do you think it's wrong?"

"I don't know", he admits freely. "I know if it were the Force... There are different ways to use the Force, to live with the Force, actually. Jedi, like I am, listen to the Force's guidance and follow its will just as it helps us when we call on it. And then there are Sith and they bend it to their will and what they can do with the Force..." Obi-Wan suppresses that shudder that always comes with remembering the Darth Maul he fought in the Clone Wars, that twisted, nauseating presence that was fear and anger and vengeance wrapping around the last threads of life that kept Maul from becoming one with the Force. "Maybe just listen to the water for the moment. Let it guide you and maybe guide it in return."

Katara settles back into a meditative pose with a heavy exhale that could be a sigh. In turn, Obi-Wan closes his own eyes again and stretches out with the Force at the same time. He's trying to find Zuko and Iroh and-

Katara moves, sighs and moves again, readjusting her sitting position while radiating a whole bulk of unease into the Force.

She shifts again.

And again.

And again.

"What's wrong, young one?", Obi-Wan asks before remembering that she's not his young one.

Katara jumps to her feet. "You asked me if it feels right to bend the water to my will, right? I still don't know but this, this sitting around and doing nothing, feels wrong. I can't do it. Water is never resting."

"What about a still lake?"

"That's moving with the moon, just not as much as the sea." Katara crosses her arms.

"And the ice?"

"Glaciers also move."

Obi-Wan bites down a grin because he knows she'll take it the wrong way. "Then why don't you meditate with the water instead against it?"

"Because..." She cocks her head. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

"There's more than one way to meditate." Obi-Wan gets up, ignores the creak of his joints as he does. "I prefer to sit down, close my eyes and breathe to just feel the Force but you're no Jedi and as you said, water is always in motion although we could discuss the technicalities here."

"So now you want me to... just move?"

"Something like that." Obi-Wan smiles at her encouragingly. "There's a river close by, if I-" He pauses mid-sentence. "I came here with Aang but that was only his spirit, wasn't it? So where's his body?"

Katara pales.

"Run?", he suggests.

Katara nods and storms forward.

They find Aang's body in the same ashen place that Obi-Wan had appeared in the morning. Rather, they find Aang's body at the top of a statue. In the morning Obi-Wan hadn't really registered its existence beyond a formation of rocks but now that he looks at Aang sitting on top, his tattoos glowing with the Force, it's most assuredly a statue.

"Katara, you should go down to the river. I'll keep watch over Aang."

"And when I'm down at the river?"

"Then you try to listen to the water." No, Obi-Wan isn't sure this will work, but it's his best guess. If firebending is fuelled by the sun and breath, then waterbending may be fuelled by the flow of the rivers and streams. "Just... listen with all your senses and trust your instincts when they tell you how to move."

While Katara is finding some semblance of peace with the river, excitement and frustration rapidly interchanging in her Force presence, Obi-Wan sits down in front of the statue and finally gets to meditate as well. He's still unsure what the dragon Fang wanted to communicate with the sun and the scroll and the feeling of good-right.

It doesn't take Obi-Wan long to join Katara in the cycle of excitement and frustration. He can feel that the answer is obvious and close at hand but his thoughts always drift away. In that regard he's relieved when finally he can sense Aang and Fang approaching them like a massive spiritual storm cloud that has his hairs stand up with electricity.

"Katara!", he yells for her first by Force, then by voice because instincts are still hard to forget. "Aang's returning."

Aang is also yelling as Fang accelerates and they pick up speed right before they crash into the statue. There's no impact, of course, besides the one he can feel in the Force of Aang being thrown back into his body.

"Aang! You're back!", Katara runs to Aang for a hug, then pauses. "Where's Sokka? Didn't the dragon help you?"

Aang looks to the ground at her side. "I'm not sure..."

"Then we better return to the village", Obi-Wan suggests. "Aang, you left your glider on top."

They hide with the other villagers in the main building. The villagers keep their distance from Obi-Wan who's so clearly a stranger and he can't blame them. What he can blame on them is putting a child between them and an angry spirit. "This is wrong", he whispers to Katara. "No matter that he's the Avatar, he shouldn't be out there alone."

"Sokka said the same and then he vanished. You're not going out there."

He wants to argue – after all he's already seen what happens when children are made to fight the wars of their ancestors – but he never gets to open his mouth as a mighty roar – not purely in the Force as Katara flinches, too – splits his head open metaphorically.

That would be Hei Bai then.

Obi-Wan curls into his shields, makes his being as small and impenetrable as possible because the spirit is roaring anger and a deep abyss of grief and pain, so much pain. And Obi-Wan knows this kind of pain well. Hei Bai is burning. That's the pain of fire eating away at skin and flesh. Not that Obi-Wan has witnessed that personally but he's been present on Queyta when Jon Antilles was consumed by lava, he was there when Vader lay on the shores of Mustafar's lava rivers and bled his anger-hate-pain-betrayal through their Force bond.

He curls deeper into himself. He's a smooth stone like the one Qui-Gon had gifted him years and years ago, just a smooth stone in the river bed and the currents flow of anger-grief-pain flow over him without any purchase on the surface of his shields.

He's just a smooth stone in the river bed.

Until he's not.

The river is gone, all that anger-grief-pain back to a presence in the background of the Force, now threaded through with streaks of hope. He's Obi-Wan Kenobi, called Ben, and he's a Jedi Master. Still, he doesn't dare to open up the stone shields of his mind just yet.

"Ben?" Katara is shaking him. As he returns to his senses of self, his senses also return to him. "Ben?"

"I'm awake", he rasps out. "Did I scream?"

"The Hei Bai roared and you went down screaming, yes. What happened?"

"I could feel Hei Bai." Consciously, Obi-Wan relaxes muscle after muscle. He hasn't just curled up in the Force then. "The spirit was in such pain and like anyone wounded badly, they lashed out at everything." He winces as loud exclamations of joy can be heard from the villagers outside. "Let's say that Hei Bai's anger broke through my shields like a spear through a thin sheet of paper."

Katara helps him up. "Is it gone now?"

"The onslaught? Yes." He winces again because that's Aang not just yelling loudly for Sokka but also sending out bright lances of joy into the Force. "This is just a headache." A nasty one. "Now go, your brother's out there. I'll catch up." Carefully and very slowly. Just a stone, he thinks. Just a smooth stone in the riverbed and all those emotions wash over him, they aren't his.

Katara eyes him sceptically but then vanishes outside to run at her brother.

He breathes in, breathes out. Just a stone and to keep up this shield would be a lot easier if he hadn't been hit like that by Hei Bai's anger. His head is doing its very best impression of trying to kill him. Carefully relaxing all those cramped up muscles, he gathers his bearings. Just a stone in a river bed and even stones in the river bed can put one metaphorical foot in front of the next.

He leaves the main building.

There is bamboo now sprouting at the village entrance and there's reunited families, Katara and Sokka just one of the many that are hugging each other tightly. The whole village buzzes with relief, Aang among them the most prominent of those buzzes. He can feel Katara's joy and tears of happiness. What he can also feel is Sokka who's still baffled to be back and to have his sister be so happy.

Obi-Wan sighs in relief as he sees the siblings reunited. Then he blinks. He can actually see Sokka. Not just with his eyes but with the Force, too. Sokka, who was so far always a bit elusive, a bit not-there to his Force senses, who was fast talking and loud jokes and so very, very clear to not be seen beyond what he showed – and Obi-Wan, who was still getting accustomed to this world has not noticed.

It is so clear now – why now, exactly, he can only guess. Maybe because Sokka had a brush with the spirit world, maybe because right now he is too relieved and confused to not guard himself that well, maybe because Obi-Wan himself is now better attuned to this world and its people.

He only knows one thing.

Sokka shines with the Force. He's probably hiding it, is probably hiding himself to not go mad from other people's thoughts and emotions but right now it is almost blinding – maybe he's just no longer used to feeling the Force of others and that thought is enough to send a spike of pain through his heart. He squashes the thought like so many other, similar ones before.

Then the next part registers. Sokka is Force sensitive. He will need a teacher, especially now that he's openly going to war alongside Aang.

Obi-Wan sighs. Lieutenant Jee might just kill him for this. Iroh maybe won't. Zuko... Oh, he's kriffed.

"Wherever you're going next", he tells Aang, "I'll come with you. There's something we need to talk about after I slept off this headache."

Mostly by instinct he finds Appa, buries himself into the giant animal's side and curls up again. Just a stone in the river bed, just a smooth stone with no purchase to be had.

And stones don't wince at a particularly loud squeal from a child reunited with his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No idea why but I love to write prickly Katara. She's got quite the temper and, well, she's had to prove herself every day since her mother died, didn't she? Prove that she's capable, not useless, take care of Sokka and the village because she has to prove that she's a good daughter to Hakoda. But, hey, she's also clever and knows that she has to learn as much as she can.  
> Now that I think about it a bit more, Katara is probably also an emotional mess. She knows that she can fight and she knows that she can be as good as any man but there's also the whole tradition thing and she's got her place and she doesn't want to be an embarassment to her family... well, we still have some episodes to go until she meets Pakku, don't we?^^  
> Ach, well, Obi-Wan really is an emotional mess, right? Like. There's Zuko and he can see what Zuko could be but there's also the fact that Zuko has participated in the cruelties of the Fire Nation, not to the extreme of Zhao or others, but he does throw fire at the Water Tribe villagers, burns down that village on Kyoshi... Guess it just shows that not being a bad person doesn't automatically make you a good person, right?  
> Katara @ sitting still: This is torture, I'd rather die (and I can relate to that a lot)  
> Oh, yeah, and I think that an angry spirit's roar is about the mental equivalent of a battering ram with all the tact of one, too. For a Jedi caught unprepared, that's probably very unpleasant.  
> I don't think I can say any more to Force sensitive Sokka than I've said in the text yet but, I mean... he's always just that bit lucky, his people instincts are on point in about every instance I can remember right now, his boomerang just so always hits and the way he picks up new skills so fast... well, if he can pick up the rhythm of movemens and the way that technique works inside the body subconsciously rather than having to watch a demonstration then translate it to his own physique... would explain quite a bit, wouldn't it?  
> So I guess the next chapter will hold quite a bit of Jedi talk, hopefully finally that explanation Obi-Wan is hoping for and I guess a rather angry Zuko... this will be fun :D


End file.
